
Class. 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



POEMS 



POEMS 



By 



THEODORE MAYNARD 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

G. K. CHESTERTON 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



^ 



v c\v\ 



.;- 



Copyright, 1917, 1918, by Daniel E. Hudson; Copyright, 1917, 
1 918, by The Sisters of Mercy; Copyright, 1917, 191 9, by The 
Missionary Society of St. Paul tlie Apostle in the State of New 
York. 



Copyright, 191Q, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All Rights Reserved 






©CI.A530945 

m\ 1 



TO 
MY WIFE 

We two have seen with our own eyes 
God's multitudinous disguise ; 
Waylaid Him in His voyaging 
Among the buttercups of Spring ; 
In valleys where the lilies shone 
More glorious than Solomon 
We met a poet passing by, 
And learned his lyric — you and 1 1 

But oh ! did kindly Heaven not bless 
Our lives with more than loveliness, 
When, cast on every sapling-rod, 
Was seen the motley of our God ; 
When having picked our way with craft 
Up cliffs to hear Him when He laughed, 
We felt, uplifted on the wind, 
His folly blown into our mind ? 

What doubt can touch us ? We have heard 
The baby laughter of the Word 1 
We mingle with solemnity 
A Catholic note of revelry 
In hypostatic union. 
From love's carved choir-stalls we con 
The plain-song of the Breviary 
Illumined by hilarity. 
For as each cleansing sacrament 
To our soul's comforting was sent 
{Through water and oil and wheat and wine T 
Bringing to human the divine), 
So shall we find on lovers' lips 
The splendour of apocalypse, 
[ v] 



DEDICATION 

And through the body's jive gates come 
To all the good of Christendom. 

We have no fear that we shall lose 

This joyous Gospel of good news, 

For our symbolic love has stood 

By virtue of its fortitude — 

Knowing a bitter Lenten fast, 

Satan discomforted at last, 

A bowed back scalding with great scars, 

Gethsemane of tears and stars, 

A journey oj the cross, and ah, 

Its part and lot in Golgotha I 

We know — let the marvellous thing be said I — 
Love's resurrection jrom the dead . . . 
For as Magdalen came with cinnamon 
And aloes to smear Love's limbs upon, 
But met alone on the Easter grass 
Life's Lord, though she wist not Who He was— 
So we, till He spoke as He spoke to her, 
Mistook Him for the gardener. 

April 14th, iqi8. 



[vi] 



NOTE 

This edition of Theodore Maynard's poems represents 
the author's own selection of such of his published 
verse as he wishes included in a permanent collection. 
With few omissions, it represents the contents of the 
three volumes issued in Great Britain under the titles, 
"Laughs and Whifts of Song" 191 5; "Drums of Defeat," 
191 7; "Folly," 191 8, none of which has hitherto been 
published in this country. 



[ vii] 



ON THEODORE MAYNARD'S 
POEMS 

In the case of any poet who has cuaght and held our 
recollection, there is generally a particular piece of 
work which remains in our mind, not as the crown, 
but as the key. And ever since I saw in The New 
Witness some lines called "A Song of Colours," by 
Theodore Maynard, they have remained to me as a 
sort of simplification, or permanent element, of the 
rest of the poet's writings; and I have felt him espe- 
cially as a poet of colour. They are not by any means 
the best of his lines. They are direct, as is appropriate 
to a ballad; and they have none of the fine whimsi- 
cality or the frank humour to be found elsewhere in 
his work. Among these others the choice is hard: 
but I should say that the finest poetry as such is to 
be found in the images, and even in the very title, of 
"The World's Miser": and even more in the poem 
called "Apocalypse." In this latter the poet imagines 
a new world which shall be supernatural in the strongest 
sense of the word; that of being more vivid and posi- 
tive than the natural; and not (as it is so often imag- 
ined) more tenuous and void. 

" Or what empurpled blooms to oust the rose 
Or what strange grass to glow like angels' hair!" 

The last line has the touch of the true mystic, which 
changes a thing and yet leaves it familiar. True 
artistic pugnacity, a thing that generally goes with 
true artistic pleasure, is well-expressed in the shrewd 
lines of the poem printed as a sequel to another poem 
called "To a Good Atheist." The sequel is called "To 
[ ix J 



ON THEODORE MAYNARD'S POEMS 

a Bad Atheist," with the charming explanation: 
"Who wrote what he called a trinity of meek retorts 
to the preceding poem, which were not meek, but full 
of pride and abominable heresy." He describes the 
bad atheist's mind as containing nothing but sawdust, 
sun and sand; which is accurate and exhaustive. 
And in so far as poetry appeals to particular tempera- 
ments, I myself find enjoyment expecially in the part 
of the collection properly to be called "Laughs"; 
in the ballads of feasting and fellowship; and espe- 
cially in that sublime absolution gravely offered to the 
Duke of Norfolk. 

But the sentiment of colour still ran like a thread 
through the whole texture; and I think there is hardly 
a poem that does not repeat it. And this is important; 
because the whole of Mr. Maynard's inspiration is 
part of what is the main business of our time: the 
resurrection of the Middle Ages. The modern move- 
ment, with its Guild Socialism and its military reaction 
against the fatalism of the Barbarian, is as certainly 
drawing its life from the lost centuries of Catholic 
Europe, as the movement more commonly called the 
Renaissance drew its life from the lost languages 
and sculptures of antiquity. And, by a quaint incon- 
sistency, Hellenists and Neo-Pagans of the school of 
Mr. Lowes Dickinson will call us antiquated for 
gathering the flowers which still grow on the graves of 
our mediaeval ancestors, while they themselves will 
industriously search for the scattered ashes from the 
more distant pyres of the Pagans. 

[x] 



ON THEODORE MAYNARD'S POEMS 

And the visible clue to the Middle Ages is colour. 
The mediaeval man could paint before he could draw. 
In the almost startling inspiration which we call 
stained glass, he discovered something that is almost 
more coloured than colour; something that bears the 
same relation to mere colour that golden flame does 
to golden sand. He did not, like other artists, try in 
his pictures to paint the sun; he made the sun 
paint his pictures. He mixed the aboriginal light with 
the paints upon his palette. And it is this translucent 
actuality of colour which I feel in the phraseology of 
this writer, in a way it is not easy to analyse. We can 
only say that when he says — 

"Among the yellow primroses 
He holds His summer palaces" 

we have an impression, which it is the object of all 
poetry to produce. It can only be described by saying 
that a primrose by the river's brim a yellow primrose 
is to him, and it could not possibly be anything more. 
| And this almost torrid directness and distinctness of 
tint is again connected with another quality of the 
poet and his poetic tradition: what many would call 
asceticism alternating with what many would call 
buffoonery. The colour conventions of the Middle 
Ages were copied very beautifully by the school of 
Rossetti and Swinburne. But they lost the exuberance 
of the Gothic and became a pattern rather than a 
plan; chiefly because they were not seriously inspired 
by any of the enthusiasms of the Middle Ages. Its 
[xi] 



ON THEODORE MAYNARD'S POEMS 

decorative repetitions sometimes became quite dreary 
and artificial; as in Swinburne's unfortunate couplet 
about the lilies and languors of virtue and the raptures 
and roses of vice. A little healthy gardening would 
have taught Swinburne that it takes quite as much 
virtue to grow a rose as to grow a lily. It might also 
have taught him that virtue is never languid, whatever 
else it may be: and that even lilies are not really 
languid so long as they are alive. If such decadents 
want an image of what it really is that holds up 
the heads of lilies or any other growing things, I can 
refer them to a couplet in this little volume, which is 
more beautiful and more original and means a great 
deal more — 

"What wilful trees of any spring 

Than your young body are more fair?" 

These lines contain a principle of life and mark the 
end of a pagan sterility. They contain the secret, not 
of gathering rosebuds while we may, but of growing 
them when we choose. 

G. K. Chesterton. 



[xii] 



CONTENTS 
LAUGHS AND WHIFTS OF SONG 



PAGE 



A Song of Colours 3 

Cecidit, Cecidit Babylon Magna .... 5 

Apocalypse 7 

Ghosts 9 

Processional 10 

A Song of Laughter 12 

Ballade in Praise of Arundel 13 

The Tramp 15 

The World's Miser 17 

Easter 19 

The Glory of the Oriflamme 20 

To a Good Atheist 21 

To a Bad Atheist 23 

Palm Sunday 25 

When I Ride into the Town 27 

Requiem 29 

Ave Atque Vale 30 

Aladdin 31 

Adam 32 

The English Spring 33 

At the Crib 35 

The Mystic 37 

To Any Saint 39 

Sunset on the Desert 40 

[ xiii ] 



CONTENTS 
FOLLY 



PAGE 



Folly 43 

The Ships 45 

Laughter 47 

Vocation 49 

Blindness 50 

Drinking Song 52 

Three Triolets 54 

A New Canterbury Tale 56 

In Memoriam F. H. M 62 

To the Irish Dead 63 

John Redmond . 64 

Beauty 65 

Faith's Difficulty 67 

Christmas on Crusade 69 

The Ascetic 71 

Sonnet for the Fifth of October .... 75 

Warfare 76 

Treason 77 

There was an Hour 78 

Nocturne 79 

Pride 80 

Ballade of Sheep Bells 82 

Ballade of a Ferocious Catholic .... 84 

Dawn 86 

Sunset 87 

Peace 88 

Carrion - 89 

The Building of the City 91 

Eden Re-opened 93 

[ xiv ] 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Holy Spring 95 

Viaticum 97 

Punishment -'98 

After Communion 99 

The Universal Mother 100 

The Boaster 102 

Unwed 104 

Wed 105 

England . 106 

Lyric Love 108 

DRUMS OF DEFEAT 

The Fool 113 

Don Quixote 115 

Ireland 118 

In Memoriam 119 

Mater Desolata 120 

The Stirrup Cup 121 

The Ensign 122 

Ballade of Orchards 124 

A Great Wind 126 

Birthday Sonnet 128 

Silence 129 

At Yelverton 130 

The Joy of the World 132 

Gratitude 135 

In Domo Johannis 139 

At Woodchester 140 

"For They Shall Possess the Earth" . . 142 

Ballade of the Best Song in the World . 144 

[xv] 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Tail-piece 146 

Ave 147 

A Reply 149 

Job 151 

The Soil of Solace • . . . 153 

To the Dead 154 

Spring, 1916 156 

The Return 157 

Fulfilment 158 

Prophecy 159 

The Singer to His Lady . 160 

Certainties 161 

Fear 162 

Charity 163 

Sight and Insight 164 

Christmas Carol 166 

A Garden Enclosed . 167 

The Lover 169 



[ xvi ] 



POEMS 



LAUGHS AND WHIFTS OF SONG 



A SONG OF COLOURS 

GOLD for the crown of Mary, 
Blue for the sea and sky, 
Green for the woods and meadows 

Where small white daisies lie, 
And red for the colour of Christ's blood 
When He came to the cross to die. 

These things the high God gave us 
And left in the world He made — 

Gold for the hilt's enrichment, 

And blue for the sword's good blade, 

And red for the roses a youth may set 
On the white brows of a maid. 

Green for the cool, sweet gardens 

Which stretch about the house, 
And the delicate new frondage 

The winds of Spring arouse, 
And red for the wine which a man may drink 

With his fellows in carouse. 

Blue and green for the comfort 
Of tired hearts and eyes, 
[3] ' 



A SONG OF COLOURS 

And red for that sudden hour which comes 
With danger and great emprise, 
And white for the honour of God's throne 
When the dead shall all arise. 

Gold for the cope and chalice, 
For kingly pomp and pride, 
And red for the feathers men wear in their 
caps 
When they win a war or a bride, 
And red for the robe which they dressed 
God in 
On the bitter day He died. 



[41 



CECIDIT, CECIDIT BABYLON MAGNA! 

THE aimless business of your feet, 
Your swinging wheels and piston rods, 
The smoke of every sullen street 

Have passed away with all your Gods. 

For in a meadow far from these 
A hodman treads across the loam, 

Bearing his solid sanctities 
To that strange altar called his home. 

I watch the tall, sagacious trees 
Turn as the monks do, every one; 

The saplings, ardent novices, 

Turning with them towards the sun, 

That Monstrance held in God's strong hands, 

Burnished in amber and in red; 
God, His Own priest, in blessing stands; 

The earth, adoring, bows her head. 

The idols of your market place, 

Your high debates, where are they now? 

Your lawyers' clamour fades apace — 
A bird is singing on the bough ! 

[51 



CECIDIT, CECIDIT BABYLON MAGNA! 

Three fragile, sacramental things 

Endure, though all your pomps shall pass- 

A butterfly's immortal wings, 
A daisy and a blade of grass. 



[6] 



APOCALYPSE 

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first 
heaven and the first earth were passed away." — Apoc. xxi, r. 

SjHALL summer woods where we have laughed 
our fill; 
Shall all your grass so good to walk upon; 
Each field which we have loved, each little hill 
Be burnt like paper — as hath said Saint John? 

Then not alone they die ! For God hath told 
How all His plains of mingled fire and glass, 

His walls of hyacinth, His streets of gold, 
His aureoles of jewelled light shall pass, 

That He may make us nobler things than these, 
And in her royal robes of blazing red 

Adorn His bride. Yea, with what mysteries 
And might and mirth shall she be diamonded I 

And what new secrets shall our God disclose; 

Or set what suns of burnished brass to flare; 
Or what empurpled blooms to oust the rose ; 

Or what strange grass to glow like angels' hair! 

[7] 



APOCALYPSE 

What pinnacles of silver tracery, 

What dizzy rampired towers shall God devise 
Of topaz, beryl and chalcedony 

To make Heaven pleasant to His children's 
eyes! 

And in what cataclysms of flame and foam 
Shall the first Heaven sink — as red as sin — 

When God hath cast aside His ancient home 
As far too mean to house His children inl 



[8] 



GHOSTS 

SOME dismal nights there are when spirits 
walk 
Who lived and died unhappy in their time, 
To waste the air with vows and whispered talk 

Of tarnished love or hate or secret crime — 
But now the moon moves splendid through the 
sky; 
The night is brilliant like a silver shield; 
And in their cavalcades come riding by 

The mighty dead of many a tented field. 
On this one night at least of all the year 

The lists are set again, the lines are drawn; 
Again resounds the clang of horse and spear; 

The sweet applause of ladies, till the dawn 
Makes glad the souls of vizored knights — then 
they, 
Hearing that seneschal, the cock, all troop 
away. 



[9l 



PROCESSIONAL 

SEE how the plated gates unfold, 
How swing the creaking doors of brass ! 
With drums and gleaming arms, behold 
Christ's regal cohorts pass! 

Shall Christ not have His chosen men, 
Nor lead His crested knights so tall, 

Superb upon their horses, when 
The world's last cities fall? 

Ah, no ! These few, the maimed, the dumb, 
The saints of every lazar's den, 

The earth's off-scourings — they come 
From desert and from fen 

To break the terror of the night, 

Black dreams and dreadful mysteries, 

And proud, lost empires in their might, 
And chains and tyrannies. 

There ride no gold-encinctured kings 
Against the potentates of earth; 

God chooses all the weakest things, 
And gives Himself in birth 
[10] 



PROCESSIONAL 

With beaten slaves to draw His breath, 
And sleeps with foxes on the moor, 

With malefactors shares His death, 
Tattered and worn and poor. 

See how the plated gates unfold, 

How swing the creaking doors of brass ! 

Victorious in defeat — behold, 
Christ and His cohorts pass! 



[ii] 



A SONG OF LAUGHTER 

THE stars with their laughter are shaken; 
The long waves laugh at sea; 
And the little Imp of Laughter 
Laughs in the soul of me. 

I know the guffaw of a tempest, 
The mirth of a blossom and bud — 

But I laugh when I think of Cuchulain* who 
laughed 
At the crows with their bills in his blood. 

The mother laughs low at her baby, 
The bridegroom with joy in his bride — 

And I think that Christ laughed when they took 
Him with staves 
On the night before He died. 

* Pronounced Cuhulain. 



[12] 



BALLADE IN PRAISE OF ARUNDEL 

(Made after a walk through Surrey and Sussex.) 

I'VE trudged along the Pilgrims' Way, 
And from St. Martha's Hill looked down 
O'er Surrey woods and fields which lay 

Green in the sunlight. On the crown 
Of Hindhead and the Punchbowl's brink 
Of no good thing I've been bereaven: 
But Arundel's the place for drink — 
The pubs keep open till eleven. 

White chalk-cliffs and the stubborn clay 

Are thrown about, and many a town 
Breaks on the sight like breaking day; 

But after all, who but a clown 
Could Arundel with Midhurst link, 

Where men go dry from two till seven? 
In Arundel (no truth I'll shrink) 

The pubs keep open till eleven. 

A great cool church where men can pray 

Secure from misbelieving frown; 
And in the Square, I beg to say, 

The beer is strong and rich and brown. 
[13] 



BALLADE IN PRAISE OF ARUNDEL 

Some poor, misguided people think 

Petworth's the spot that's nearest Heaven 

In Arundel the ale-pots clink — 
The pubs keep open till eleven. 

U Envoi 

Duke, at the dreadful Judgment Day 
Your soul will surely be well shriven, 

For then all angel trumps shall bray, 
He kept pubs open till eleven! 



[14] 



THE TRAMP 

MY brothers stay in cities 
To gather shame and gold, 
But I am for the highway 
And the wind upon the wold. 



They take the train each morning 
To a dull, bricked-up place; 

I trudge the living country 
With the sunlight on my face. 

I know no home or shelter, 
No bed but good green grass, 

Nor any friends but hedgerows 
To greet me as I pass. 

But though the road still calls me 
To places wild and steep, 

I find the going heavy; 
My eyes are full of sleep. 

The fields lie all about me; 

The trees are gay with sap — 
As I go weary, weary 

To my great mother's lap, 
[15] 



THE TRAMP 

To rest me with my mother, 
The kindly earth so brown. 
And Lord ! But well contented 
I'll lay my carcase down. 



[16] 



THE WORLD'S MISER 



A MISER with an eager face 
Sees that each roseleaf is in place. 

He keeps beneath strong bolts and bars 
The piercing beauty of the stars. 



The colours of the dying day 

He hoards as treasure — well He may!- 

And saves with care (lest they be lost) 
The dainty diagrams of frost. 

He counts the hairs of every head, 
And grieves to see a sparrow dead. 

II 

Among the yellow primroses 
He holds His summer palaces, 

And sets the grass about them all 
To guard them as His spearmen small. 
[17] 



THE WORLD'S MISER 

He fixes on each wayside stone 
A mark to shew it as His Own, 

And knows when raindrops fall through air 
Whether each single one be there, 

That gathered into ponds and brooks 
They may become His picture-books, 

To shew in every spot and place 
The living glory of His face. 



[i81 



EASTER 

AMONG the gay, exultant trees, 
Over the green and growing grass, 
Clothed in immortal mysteries, 
I see His living body pass. 

The catkins fling abroad His name, 
While birds from every bush and spray 

Strain feathered necks, and tipped with flame 
The hills all stand to greet His day. 

Each violet and bluebell curled 

Wakes with the dead Christ's waking eye, 
And like burst gravestones clouds are hurled 

Across the wide and waiting sky. 

And drenched, for very height of mirth, 
With clean white tears of April rain, 

Like Mary Magdalene the earth 
Finds April's risen Lord again. 



[19] 



THE GLORY OF THE ORIFLAMME 

THE glory of the Oriflamme, 
Or strange, red flowers of the South 
Hold no such splendours as lie hid 
In your sweet mouth ! 

The secret honey of the cliff, 

The lure and laughter of the sea 

Are not the dear delight that is 
Your face to me ! 

What wilful trees of any spring 

Than your young body are more fair? 

What glamour of forgotten gold 
Lurks in your hair? 

The glory of the Oriflamme, 

Or strange, red flowers of the South 

Hold no such splendours as lie hid 
In your sweet mouth ! 



[20] 



TO A GOOD ATHEIST 

THAT you can keep your crested courage high, 
And hopeless hope without a cause, and wage 
Christ's warfare, lacking all the panoply 
Of Faith which shall endure the end of age, 



You must be made of finely tempered stuff, 
And have a kinship with that Spanish saint, 

Who wrote of his soul's night — it was enough 
That he should drag his footsteps tired and 
faint 

Along his God-appointed pathway. You 
Have stood against our day of bitter scorn, 

When loudly its triumphant trumpets blew 

Contempt of all God's poor. Had you been 
born 



But in the time of Jeanne or Catharine, 
Whose charity was as a sword of flame, 

With those who drank up martyrdom like wine 
Had stood your aureoled and ringing name. 

[21] 



TO A GOOD ATHEIST 

Yet, when that secret day of God shall break 
.With strange and splendid justice through the 
skies, 

When last are first, then star-ward you shall take 
The praise and sorrow of your starry eyes. 



[22] 



TO A BAD ATHEIST 

who ivrote ivhat he called a trinity of meek retorts to the pre- 
ceding poem, which were not meek, but full of pride and 
abominable heresy. 



YOU do not love the shadows on the wall, 
Or mists that flee before a blowing wind, 
Or Gothic forests, or light aspen leaves, 
Or skies that melt into a dreamy sea. 
In the hot, glaring noontide of your mind 
(I have your word for it) there is no room 
For anything save sawdust, sun and sand. 

No monkish flourishes will do for you; 
Your life must be set down in black and white. 
The quiet half-light of the abbey close, 
The cunning carvings of a chantry tomb, 
The leaden windows pricked with golden saints- 
All these are nothing to your ragtime soul ! 

Yet, since you are a solemn little chap, 
In spite of all your blasphemy and booze, 
That dreadful sword of satire which you shake 
Hurts no hide but your own, — you cannot use 
A weapon which is bigger than yourself. 

[23] 



TO A BAD ATHEIST 

Yet some there were who rode all clad in mail, — 
With crosses blazoned on their mighty shields, 
Roland who blew his horn against the Moor, 
Richard who charged for Christ at Ascalon, 
Louis a pilgrim with his chivalry, 
And Blessed Jeanne who sa\ r ed the crown of 

France — 
Pah ! you may keep your whining Superman ! 



[24] 



PALM SUNDAY 

THE grey hairs of Caiaphas 
Shall know the truth to-day, 
For kingly, riding on an ass, 
The Truth has come his way. 

(A thornbush grows upon the hill, 
And Golgotha is empty still/) 

Caiaphas waxes eloquent 

On tittle and on jot, 
But when they cry "Hosanna 1" 

Caiaphas answers not. 

(A thornbush grows upon the hill, 
And Golgotha is empty still!) 

In the temple of Caiaphas 

Stand two gold seraphim — 
They do not worship Christ nor shout 

As the grey stones shout for Him. 

{A thornbush grows upon the hill, 
And Golgotha is empty still!) 
[25] 



PALM SUNDAY 

The vestments of Calaphas 

With gold and silver shone — 
They would get soiled if he cast them down 

For the ass to walk upon. 

(A thornbush grows upon the hill, 
And Golgotha is empty still!) 

The religion of Caiaphas 

Is very spick and span, 
It does not love the ill-bred mob, 

The homespun Son of Man! 

{A thornbush grows upon the hill, 
And Golgotha is empty still!) 

The dark soul of Caiaphas 

Is full of sin and pride; 
It does not know the splendour 

Or the triumph of that ride 1 

{A thornbush grows upon the hill, 
And Golgotha is empty still!) 

[26] 



WHEN I RIDE INTO THE TOWN 

WHEN I go riding into the town, 
When I ride into the town, 
I fill my skin at the nearest inn 

When I ride into the town. 
Oh, what is there then to trouble about? 
There are no such things as despair and doubt- 
For when ale goes in the truth comes out, 
When I ride into the town ! 



When I go riding out of the town, 

When I ride out of the town, 
I have my men behind me then 
When I ride out of the town; 
Halberd, battle-axe, culverin, bow, 
Four hundred strong as out we go, 
Four hundred yeomen to meet the foe, 
When I ride out of the town ! 



When I ride into the Town of Death — 
That strange and unknown town! — 

It will not be all cap-a-pie, 

But with sword and lance laid down. 
[27] 



WHEN I RIDE INTO THE TOWN 

Then may our Lady beside me stand; 
Saint Michael guard at my good right hand — 
God rest my soul and the souls of my band, 
When we ride into the Town I 



[28] 



REQUIEM 

WHEN my last song is sung and I am dead 
And laid away beneath the kindly clay, 
Set a square stone above my dreamless head, 

And sign me with the cross and signing say: 
"Here lieth one who loved the steadfast things 

Of his own land, its gladness and its grace, 
The stubbled fields, the linnets' gleaming wings, 

The long, low gables of his native place, 
Its gravelled paths, and the strong wind that rends 

The boughs about the house, the hearth's red 
glow, 
The surly, slow good-fellowship of friends, 

The humour of the men he used to know, 
And all their swinging choruses and mirth" — 
Then turn aside and leave my dust in earth. 



[29] 



AVE ATQUE VALE I 

MY friends, I may no longer ride with you 
To bear a sword in your brave company, 
Or follow our poor tattered flag which knew 
No shame or slur — or any victory. 



But this at least, with courage and with mirth 
We starveling poets and enthusiasts 

Have shirked no battle for the stricken earth 
Against its tyrants' spears and arbalests. 

And though I go to guard another sign, 

These things, please God, shall stand and never 
slip — 

(O friends of mine, O splendid friends of mine!) 
Honour and Freedom and Goodfellowship, 

On which and on your ragged chivalry 

I always think with proud humility. 



[30] 



ALADDIN 

THOUGH worlds all melt away in mist, 
The Heavens' slender filament, 
The orange and the amethyst, 
Are left me — and I am content! 

I stand serene amid the shocks, 
Upheavals, cataclysmic dust, 
The binding fires, the falling rocks, 
The withering of life and lust. 

This little burnished lamp I hold 

Has shattered the eternities; 
The glamour of all unknown gold, 

The ancient puissance of the seas, 

The sunlight and the love of God 

Are cast in chains beneath my feet — 

For at my first behest this sod 
Becomes a cosmos, new, complete, 

Instinct with unimagined power, 
In colour radiant pole to pole, 

The sudden glory of an hour, 
The epic moment of my soul ! 

[31] 



ADAM 

I SAW a red sky boding woe, 
The gleam of an eternal sword, 
And heard the voice that bid me go 
From the green garden of the Lord. 

I knew the prick of Destiny, 

The scorn of the relentless stars; 

The very grass looked down on me — 
The first of all the Avatars ! 

Each flower seemed to see my shame; 

Each bird as though insulted flew 
Before my hateful face — my name 

Was blown about the whole world 
through ! 

Even my house with its red roof, 

Dear as it is, looks strange and odd; 

My garden beds are more aloof 
From me than is my angry God! 



[32] 



THE ENGLISH SPRING 

I LOVE each inch of English earth ; 
I love each stone upon the way — 
Whether in Winter's sullen dearth, 

When the soil is trodden into clay — 
In Autumn ripeness, or the mirth 
Of a Summer's day. 

Something peculiar to our land 
Is hid in even the greyest sky, 

When stiff and stark the tall trees stand 
And the wind is high. 

But this one season of our year 

Is so peculiarly an English thing, 
When the woolly catkins first appear, 

And yellow burgeoning 
Upon the little coppice here — 

This native Spring 

Which comes to us so suddenly, 

Blown over the hills from the fruitful 
South; 
Full of the laughter of the laughing sea 
She comes with singing mouth. 
[33] 



THE ENGLISH SPRING 

The cool, sweet Wiltshire meadows lie 
With buttercups from end to end; 

In secret woods are small blooms, shy 
Bluebells the good gods send. 

There is no cloud that wanders by 
But is my friend. 

And now the gorse is gold again; 

The violet hides beneath the leaves; 
And quickened by thin April rain 

The debonair young sapling weaves 
His coat of lightest green; again 

Birds chirp at the eaves. 

Each hidden brook and waterfall, 

Each tiny daisy in the sun 
Calls to my heart — the hedgerows all 

So full of twigs, they call, each one; 
And with insistent voices call 

The roads where the wild flowers run. 

O set with grass and the English hedge 
Are the long, white roads which wind 
and wind — 
Roads which reach to the world's edge, 
Where the world is left behind. 
[34] 



AT THE CRIB 

AGAIN the royalties are shed, 
Disdiademed the kingly head, 
He lies again — ah, very small ! — 
Among the cattle in the stall, 
Or in His slender mother's arms 
Is snuggled up from baby harms. 

The Tower of Ivory leans down 
From Paradise's topmost crown; 
The House of Gold on earth takes root; 
From Jesse comes a saving shoot, 
For Mary gives (O manifold 
Her courtesies!) that we may hold 
Our little Lord's poor fragile hands 
And feet, the guerdon of all lands. 

No fool need fail to enter in 
The guarded Heaven we strive to win, 
Or miss upon a casual street 
The fiery impress of His feet, 
But touch with every stone and sod 
The extended fingers of our God, 
[35] 



AT THE CRIB 

And see in twigs of the stiff hedgerows, 
Or in the woods where quiet grows 
Among the naked Winter trees, 
A thousand times these mysteries: 
The branching arms with Christly fruit, 
The thorns which bruise His head and foot. 

No more with silver shrilly blown 
He treads a conqueror, but, flown 
With swift and silent whitening wings, 
He comes enwrapped in baby things. 
Our God adventures everywhere 
Beneath the cool and Christmas air, 
And setteth still His candid star 
Where Mary and her baby are ! 



[36] 



THE MYSTIC 

WHEN all my long and weary work is done 
(Toiling both soon and late, by candle- 
light, 
Sewing and sewing while my eyes can see) 
I lay my glasses by and watch the walls — 
The plaster off in patches, stained with smoke — 
Melt as a hoary mist and flee away. 
Then through the splendour of the evening skies, 
Along its star-lit paths, past pearl-white clouds 
I hasten till I reach the region where 
God's holy city like a virgin keeps 
Its spotless tryst, forever night and day. 

I do not linger here, but take my way 
To Him who sits among the Seraphim; 
And He who knows I am a poor old wife, 
With naught of wit or wealth that I can bring, 
And that my hands are hardened by my toil — 
Sees that 'tis I that need Him most of all. 
Yea, God will have the music hushed (for I 
Am growing somewhat deaf) and we will talk 
Of many things, as friend may talk with friend. 

Ah, I have looked, nnd in the dear Lord's face 
(More lined with care than any earthly man's) 
[37] 



THE MYSTIC 

Seen that He suffers too, and understands 
How hard and late I work to keep the wolf 
Outside my door, and bring my children up 
To serve Him always, and to keep them clean 
In body, heart and mind. . . . 

At the sun's call, 
Working with all my strength from early dawn, 
Through the long day, and then by candle-light 
Sewing on buttons while my eyes can see, 
I know the glory of God's gracious face, 
And at His touch my weary hands grow strong, 
Hearing His voice my heart is glad and gay. 



[38] 



TO ANY SAINT 

EFORE the choirs of angels burst to song, 
In night and loneliness your way you trod — 
O valiant heart, O weary feet and strong, 
There are no easy by-paths unto God. 

Darkness there was, thick darkness all around; 

Nor spoken word, nor hand to touch you knew, 
But One who walked the self-same stony ground 

And shared your dereliction there with you. 

O valiant heart! O fixed, undaunted will! 

While all the heavens hung like brass above, 
You faltered not, but steadfast journeyed still 

Upon the road of sainthood to your Love. 

And was not it reward exceeding great 

To kiss at last with passionate lips His side, 

His hands, His feet? O pomp! O regal state! 
O crown of life He gives unto His bride ! 

Lovers there are with roses chapleted, 

But more than theirs is your Lord's loveliness; 

Your Love is crowned with thorns upon His head, 

And pain and sorrow woven is His dress. 

[39] 



SUNSET ON THE DESERT 

AS some priest turns, his ritual all done, 
And stretching hands above the kneeling 
crowd, 
Who rapt and silent, wait with heads all bowed 
For the last holy words of benison — 
"Now God be with thee, ever Three in One" — 
So turns the sun, though all reluctantly. 
One thrilling moment comes to shrub and tree; 
Expectant stillness falls; then dark and dun 

The silhouettes of sphinx and pyramid 
Gaze at the last deep amber after-glow; 

The little stars peep down between the palms; 
And all the ghosts that garish daylight hid 

Are quickened — Isis with the breasts of snow 
And Antony with Egypt in his arms. 



[40] 



FOLLY 



FOLLY 

O HALL I not wear my motley 
^-^ And flaunt my bladder of green 
Before the earls and the bishops 

And the laughing king and queen; 
Though hunger is in my belly 
And jests my lips between? 

Men listen a moment idly 
To the foolishness I sing — 

But my words are sharp and bitter 
In savour and in sting, 

And harder than mail in battle 
Where the heavy maces swing. 

For full of the sap of folly 

Grow the branches of the Creed, 

The fine adventurous folly 
God gave us in our need, 

When He yielded up to scornful death 
The human brows that bleed. 

They nailed the son of Mary 
On a gibbet straight and tall; 
[43] 



FOLLY 

But the eagles of the Roman 
Were struck in Caesar's hall, 

And the veil of the Holy of Holies 
Was rent in the temple wall. 

Wiser than sage or prophet, 
Or the pedant of the school, 

Than lord or abbot or priest or prince 
Who over the nations rule, 

Are the cap and bells and the motley 
And the laughter of the fool! 

February xzth, 1918. 



[44] 



THE SHIPS 

THE bending sails shall whiten on the sea, 
Guided by hands and eyes made glad for 
home, 
With graven gems and cedar and ebony 
From Babylon and Rome. 

For here a lover cometh as to his bride, 
And there a merchant to his utmost price — 

Oh, hearts will leap to see the good ships ride 
Safely to Paradise ! 

And this that cuts the waves with brazen prow 
Hath heard the blizzard groaning through her 
spars; 

Battered with honour swings she nobly now 
Back from her bitter wars. 

And that doth bring her silver work and spice, 
Peacocks and apes from Tarshish, and from 
Tyre 
Great cloaks of velvet stiff with gold device, 
Coloured with sunset fire. . . . 
[45] 



THE SHIPS 

And one, serenely through the golden gate, 
Shall sail and anchor by the ultimate shore, 

Who, plundered of her gold by pirate Fate, 
Still keeps her richer store 

Unrifled when her perilous journey ends 

And the strong cable holds her safe again: 

Laughter and memories and the songs of friends 
And the sword edge of pain. 

June 1 9 17. 



[46] 



LAUGHTER 

OH, not a poet lives but knows 
The laughing beauty of the rose, 
The heyday humour of the noon, 
The solemn smiling of the moon, — 
When night, as happy as a lover, 
Doth kiss and kiss the earth, and cover 
His face with all her tender hair. 

Sweet bride and bridegroom everywhere, 
And mothers, who so softly sing 
Upon their babies' slumbering, 
Know joy upon their lips, and laughter 
At Joy's heels that comes tumbling after. 

But who shall shake his sides to hear 
That sacred laughter, fraught with fear, 
That laughter strange and mystical — 
The hero laughing in his fall; 
Whene'er a man goes out alone, 
Is thrown and is not overthrown? 

The fates shall never bow the head 
That irony hath comforted, 
Nor thrust him down with shameful scars 
Who towers above the reeling stars. 

[47] 



LAUGHTER 

Thus God, Who shaketh roof and rafter 

Of highest heaven with holy laughter; 

Who made fantastic, foolish trees 

Shadow the floors of tropic seas, 

Where finny gargoyles, goggle-eyed, 

Grin monstrously beneath the tide; 

Who made for some titanic joke 

Out of the acorn grow the oak; 

From buried seed and riven rocks, 

Brings death and life — a paradox! 

Who breaks great Kingdoms, and their Kings, 

Upon the knees of helpless things. . . . 

So flesh the Word was made Who gave 

His body to a human grave, 

While devils gnashed their teeth at loss 

To see Him triumph on the cross. . . . 

Thus God, Who shaketh roof and rafter 
Of highest heaven with holy laughter 1 

October i^th, 1917. 



[48] 



VOCATION 

THOUGH God has put me in the world to 
praise 
Each beetle's burnished wing, each blade of 
grass, 
To track the manifold and marvellous ways 

Whereon His bright creative footsteps pass; 

To glory in the poplars' summer green, 

To guard the sunset's glittering hoard of gold, 

To gladden when the fallen leaves careen 
On fairy keels upon the windy wold. 

For this, for this, my eager mornings broke, 
For this came sunshine and the lonely rain, 

For this the stiff and sleepy woods awoke 
And every hawthorn hedge along the lane. 

For this God gave me all my joy of verse 
That I might shout beneath exultant skies, 

And meet, as one delivered from a curse, 
The pardon and the pity in your eyes. 



[49] 



BLINDNESS 

OPEN the casement! From my room, 
Perched high upon this dizzy spire, 
My blinded eyes behold the bloom 
Of gardens in their golden fire. 

Oh deep, mysterious recompense — 

Time static to my ardent gaze! 
No longer mortal veils of sense 

Conceal the blissful ray of rays! 

Fantastic forests toss their heads 
For my immortal youth; on grass 

Brighter than jewels do the reds 
Of riotous summer roses pass. 

I traffic in abysmal seas, 

And dive for pearls and coloured shells, 
Where, over seaweeds tall as trees, 

The waters boom like tenor bells; 

Where bearded goblin-fish and sharks, 
With fins as large as eagles' wings, 

Throw phosphorescent trails of sparks 

Which glitter on drowned Spaniards' rings. 
[50] 



BLINDNESS 

From star to star I pilgrimage, 
Undaunted in ethereal space; 

And laugh because the sun in rage 
Shoots harmless arrows at my face. 

For even if the skies should flare 
In God's last catastrophic blaze, 

My happy, blinded eyes would stare 
Only upon the ray of rays. 

January zoth, 1918. 



[51] 



DRINKING SONG 

WHEN Horace wrote his noble verse, 
His brilliant, glowing line, 
He must have gone to bed the worse 

For good Falernian wine. 
No poet yet could praise the rose 
In verse that so serenely flows 
Unless he dipped his Roman nose 
In good Falernian wine. 

Shakespeare and Jonson too 
Drank deep of barley brew — 
Drank deep of barley brew, my boys, 
Drank deep of barley brew! 

When Alexander led his men 

Against the Persian King, 
He broached a hundred hogsheads, then 

They drank like anything. 
They drank by day, they drank by night, 
And when they marshalled for the fight 
Each put a score of foes to flight — 

They drank like anything I 
[52] 



DRINKING SONG 

No warrior worth his salt 
But quaffs the mighty malt — 
But quaffs the mighty malt, my boys, 
But quaffs the mighty malt! 

When Patrick into Ireland went 

The works of God to do, 
It was his excellent intent 

To teach men how to brew. 
The holy saint had in his train 
A man of splendid heart and brain — 
A brewer was this worthy swain — 

To teach men how to brew. 

The snakes he drove azvay 
Were teetotallers they say — 
Teetotallers they say, my hoys, 
Teetotallers they say I 

September 2,0th, 1917. 



[53] 



THREE TRIOLETS 



OF AN IMPROBABLE STORY 

I HEARD a story from an oak 
As I was walking in the wood- 
I, of the stupid human-folk, 
I heard a story from an oak. 
Though larches »nto laughter broke 

I hardly think I understood. 
I heard a story from an oak 
As I was walking in the wood. 



II 

OF DEPLORABLE SENTIMENTS 

I wouldn't sell my noble thirst 
For half-a-dozen bags of gold; 

I'd like to drink until I burst. 

I wouldn't sell my noble thirst 

For lucre filthy and accurst — 

Such treasures can't be bought and sold! 

I wouldn't sell my noble thirst 

For half-a-dozen bags of gold. 
[54] 



THREE TRIOLETS 

III 
OF LOVE AND LAUGHTER 

You scattered joy about my way 

And filled my lips with love and laughter 
In white and yellow fields of May 
You scattered joy about my way. 
Though Winter come with skies of grey 

And grisly death come stalking after, 
You scattered joy about my way 

And filled my lips with love and laughter 



t55l 



A NEW CANTERBURY TALE 

IN Italie a mony yeer ago 
There lived a little childe Catharine, 
With yonge, merrie herte clere as snow. 

From hir first youthful hour she did entwyne 
Roses both whyt and reed — Godis columbine 
She was. And for hir holy gaiety 
Was by hir neighbours clept Euphrosyne. 

Ech stepp she took upon hir fadirs staires, 
Kneeling she did an Ave Mary say; 

With ful devocioun she seid hir prayers 
Ere that she wente forth ech day to play; 
Our Blessid Queen was in hir thought alway- 

Our Modir Mary whose humility 

Hath raised hir to hevines mageste. 

When only sevin was this childes age 
She vowed hirself to sweet virginity, 

Forsweering eny erthly marriage, 

That she the clene bride of Crist schuld be, 
Who on the heavy cross ful cruelly 

The Jewes nailed, hevin to open wide — 

Crist for hir husebond, she Cristes bride. 

[56] 



A NEW CANTERBURY TALE 

Swich was the litle innocentes intent, 

Hirself unspotted from the world to kepe, 

Al hidden in hir fadirs hous she went. 
Whether in waking or in pure sleep 
She builded hir a close celle deep — 

Where Lorde Criste colde walk with hir, 

And hold alway His sweete convers there. 

So ful she was of gentil charity, 

She didde tend upon the sick ech day; 

To beggars in their grete necessity 

She gave hir cloke and petticoat away; 
To no poor wighte "did she saye nay — 

And when reproved merrily she spoke, 

"God loveth charity more than my cloke." 

An olde widow lay al striken sore 

With leprose, that dreed and foul disease; 
And to hir (filled to the herte core 

With love of God) that she schuld bring hir 

ease 
Did Catharine come, nor did hit hir displese 
That she schuld wash the woundes tenderly, 
And bind hem up for Goddes charity. 

[57] 



A NEW CANTERBURY TALE 

And though the pacient waxed querulous, 
The blessid seinte wearied neer a whit, 
For hir upbrading tong so slanderous, 
Nor even when upon hir handes lit 
The leprose corrupt and foul — for hit 
Is nothing to the shame Godde bore 
When nailes and speares His smoothe flesch 
y-tore. 

But now behold a woundrous miracle ! 

For al that Seinte Catharine colde do, 
Hir pacient died and was y-carried wel 

Unto hir grave by stout men and true. 

When they upon hir corse the cloddes threw, 
Then new as eny childes gan to shine 
The shrivvelled handes of holy Catharine! 

There lived there a youth clept Nicholas, 
Who made in that citee seditioun, 

Causing a grete riot in that place, 
So that the magistrates of the toun 
Hent him and cast him in a strong prisoun; 

And thilke wighte they anon did try, 

And for his sin condemned him to die. 

[58] 



A NEW CANTERBURY TALE 

And Catharine y-waxed piteous 

To see him brought unto this sorry case, 

And went to him unto the prisoun hous 
To move his soul to Jhesu Cristes grace. 
So yong he was and fresh and faire of face, 

Hir herte' moved was as to a son, 

And he by hir sweet, gracious wordes was won. 

That for his deth he made a good accord, 
And was y-shriven wel of his assoyl, 

And with a humble soul received our Lord 

From the prestes hands. His herte that did 

boil 
But little whyles ago — was freed from toil, 

And fixed on our Lordes precious blood, 

Which for our sak He spilled on the rood. 

And when he came to executioun, 
No feer had he nor eny bitter care, 

But walked among the guardes thurgh the toun 
In joy so hye as if he trod on air. 
Seint Catharine she was y-waiting there 

To cheer his soul against the dreedful end, 

When unto God his soul at last most wend. 

[59] 



A NEW CANTERBURY TALE 

And there thilke holy virgin welcomed him; 

"Come, Nicholas," she said, "my sonne deere. 
The boul of glorious life is at the brim — 

Come, Nicholas — your nuptials are neer; 

The bridegroom calleth, be you of good cheer." 
And whyl they made redy, on hir brest 
She kept the hed of Nicholas at rest. 

And when that al in ordre had been set, 
She stretched out his nekke tenderly, 

"This day your soules bridegroom shal be met. 
Hark! how He calleth, sweet and winsomely." 
And Nicholas spak to hir ful of glee — 

"Jhesu" and "Catharine" the wordes he seid; 

Then fel the ax and severed off his hed. 

And even as his bloody hed did fall, 

She caught hit in her lap and handes faire, 

Nor recked that the blood was over al 
Hir robes, but she kissed hit sitting there, 
And smoothed doun the rough and ragged hair. 

God wot that grete peace was in hir herte 

That Nicholas in hevin had found his part. 

[60] 



A NEW CANTERBURY TALE 

O holy Catharine, pray for us then, 
Be to our soules a modir and a frend; 

We are poor wandering and sinful men, 

And al unstable through the world we wend. 
Pray for us, Catharine, unto the end, 

That filled with thy grete charity 

In Goddes love we schulde live and die. 



[61] 



IN MEMORIAM F. H. M. 
Killed in Action, April 9TH, 19 17 

THOUGH now we see, as through the battle 
smoke, 
The image of your young uplifted face 
Surprised by death, and broken as it broke 

The hearts of those who loved your eager grace, 
Your noble air and magnanimity — 

A summer perfect in its flowers and leaves, 
Brave promises of fruitfulness to be, 

Which now no hand may bind in goodly 
sheaves — 
No hand but God's. . . . Yet your remembered 
ways, 
Your eyes alight with gentleness and mirth, 
The lovely honour of your shortened days, 

A new grave gladness on the furrowed earth 
Shall sow for us, a new pride wide and deep — 
And we shall see the corn — and reap, and reap. 



[62] 



TO THE IRISH DEAD 

YOU who have died as royally as kings, 
Have seen with eyes ablaze with beauty, 
eyes 
Nor gold nor ease nor comfort could make wise, 
The glory of imperishable things. 

Despite your shame and loneliness and loss — 
Your broken hopes, the hopes that shall not 

cease, 
Endure in dreams as terrible as peace; 

Your naked folly nailed upon the cross 

Has given us more than bread unto our dearth 
And more than water to our aching drouth; 
Though death has been as wormwood in your 
mouth 

Your blood shall fructify the barren earth. 

August nth, 1 9 17. 



[63] 



JOHN REDMOND 

SHALL it be told in tragic song and story 
Of two who went embittered all their days, 
Two lovely Queens divided in their ways 
Until their hearts grew hard, their tresses hoary? 
Or shall the flying wings of oratory 

Of him who bore a great hope on his face 
Bring from the grave reunion to the grace 
That men call Ireland and to England's glory? 

Courageous soul, not yet the work is ended: 
The perfect pact you never lived to see, 

The peace between the warring sister, mended 
Must of your patient labours come to be, 

When in a noise of trumpets loud and splendid 

The Gael hears blown the name of liberty. 

March %th, 191 8. 



[64] 



BEAUTY 

I 
{RELATIVE) 

HOW many are the forms that beauty shows; 
To what dim shrines of sweet, forgotten 
art 
She calls; on what wide seas her strong wind 
blows 
The proud and perilous passion of the heart! 

How many are the forms of her decay; 

The blood that stains the dying of the sun, 
The love and loveliness that pass away 

Like roses' petals scattered one by one. 

But there shall issue through the ivory gate, 
Amid a mist of dreams, one dream-come-true, 

Beauty immortal, mighty of estate, 
The beauty that a poet loved in you; 

The goodness God has set as aureole 

Upon the naked meekness of your soul. 

July 22nd, 1 9 17. 

[65] 



BEAUTY 

ii 
{ABSOLUTE) 

WHO shall take Beauty in her citadel? 
Her gates will splinter not to battering 
days; 
Her slender spires can bear the onslaught well. 
Shall any track her through her secret ways 
To snare the pinions of the golden bird? 

A feather falling through the jewelled air, 
Only the echo of a lovely word — 

Nowhere her being is, and everywhere. 

But one may come at last through many woes 
And pain and hunger to his resting place, 

The watered garden of the Mystic Rose, 
The contemplation of the Bruised Face — 

The quest of all his wild, adventurous pride; 

And, seeing Beauty, shall be satisfied. 

July 29th, 1 91 7. 



[66] 



FAITH'S DIFFICULTY 

NOT these appal 
The soul tip-toeing to belief: 
The ribald call, 
The last black anguish of the thief; 

The fellowship 
Of publican and Pharisee, 

The harlot's lip 
Passionate with humility; 

Or the feet kissed 
By her who was the Magdalen — 

The sensualist 
Is one among a world of men! 

Oh, I can look 
Upon another's drama; read 

As in a book 
Things unrelated to my need; 

Give faith's assent 
To that abysmal love outpoured — 

But why was rent 
Thy seamless coat for me, dear Lord? 
[67] 



FAITH'S DIFFICULTY 

Why didst Thou bow 
Thy bleeding brows for my heart's good? 

How shall I now 
Reach to the mystic hardihood 

Where I can take 
For personal treasure all Thy loss, 

When for my sake, 
My sake, Thou didst endure the cross? 

For my soul's worth 
Was "It is finished!" loudly cried? 

For me the birth, 
The sorrows of the Crucified? 

February 16th, 1918. 



[68] 



CHRISTMAS ON CRUSADE 

HERE shall we bivouac beneath the stars; 
Gather the remnant of our chivalry 
About the crackling fires, and nurse our scars, 
And speak no more as fools must, bitterly. 

The roads familiar to His feet we trod; 

We saw the lonely hills whereon He wept, 
Prayed, agonised — dear God of very God! — 

And watched the whole world while the whole 
world slept. 

We speak no more in anger; Christian men 
Our armies rolled upon you, wave and wave : 

But crooked words and swords, O Saracen, 
Can only hold what they have given — a grave ! 

We know Him, know that gibbet whence was 
torn 

The pardon that a felon spoke on sin: 
There is more life in His dead crown of thorn 

Than in your sweeping horsemen, Saladin ! 

We speak no more in anger, we will ride 

Homeless to our own homes. His bruised head 
[69] 



CHRISTMAS ON CRUSADE 

Had never resting place. Each Christmas-tide 
Blossoms the thorn and we are comforted. 

Yea, of the sacred cradle of our creed 
We are despoiled; the kindly tavern door 

Is shut against us in our utmost need — 
We know the awful patience of the poor. 

We speak no more in anger, for we share 

His homelessness. We will forget your scorn. 

The bells are ringing in the Christmas air; 
God homeless in our homeless homes is born. 



[70] 



THE ASCETIC 

A WILD wind blows from out the angry sky 
And all the clouds are tossed like thistle- 
down 
Above the groaning branches of the trees; 
For on this steel-cold night the earth is stirred 
To shake away its rottenness; the leaves 
Are shed like secret unremembered sins 
In the great scourge of the great love of God. . . . 

Ere I was learned in the ways of love 
I looked for it in green and pleasant lands, 
In apple orchards and the poppy fields, 
And peered among the silences of woods, 
And meditated the shy notes of birds 
But found it not. 

Oh, many a goodly joy 
Of grace and gentle beauty came to me 
On many a clear and cleansing night of stars. 
But when I sat among my happy friends 
(Singing their songs and drinking of their ale, 
Warming my limbs before their kindly hearth) 
My loneliness would seize me like a pain, 
A hunger strong and alien as death. 

[71] 



THE ASCETIC 

No comfort stays with such a man as I, 
No resting place amid the dew and dusk, 
Whose head is filled with perilous enterprise 
The endless quest of my wild fruitless love. 

But these can tell how they have heard His voice, 
Have seen His face in pure untroubled sleep, 
Or when the twilight gathered on the hills 
Or when the moon shone out beyond the sea ! 

Have / not seen them? Yet I pilgrimage 
In desolation seeking after peace, 
Learning how hard a thing it is to love. 
There is a love that men find easily, 
Familiar as the latch upon the door, 
Dear as the curling smoke above the thatch — 
But I have loved unto the uttermost 
And know love in the desperate abyss, 
In dereliction and in blasphemy! 
And fly from God to find him, fill my eyes 
With road-dust and with tears and starry hopes, 
Ere I may search out Love unsearchable, 
Eternal Truth and Goodness infinite, 
And the ineffable Beauty that is God. 

[72] 



THE ASCETIC 

Empty of scorn and ceasing not to praise 

The meanest stick and stone upon the earth, 

I strive unto the stark Reality, 

The Absolute grasped roundly in my hands. 

Bitter and pitiless it is to love, 

To feel the darkness gather round the soul, 

Love's abnegation for the sake of love, 

To see my Templed symbols' slow decay 

Become of every ravenous weed the food, 

Where bats beat hideous wings about the arch 

And ruined roof, where ghosts of tragic kings 

And sleek ecclesiastics come and go 

Upon the shattered pavements of my creed. 

Yet Mercy at the last shall lead me in, 
The Bride immaculate and mystical 
Tenderly guide my wayward feet to peace, 
And show me love the likeness of a Man, 
The Slave obedient unto death, the Lamb 
Slain from the first foundations of the world, 
The Word made flesh, the tender new-born 

Child 
That is the end of all my heart's desire. 

[73] 



THE ASCETIC 

Then shall my spirit, naked of its hopes, 
Stripped of its love unto the very bone, 
Sink simply into Love's embrace and be 
Made consummate of all its burning bliss, 

August 26th, 1917. 



[74] 



SONNET FOR THE FIFTH OF OCTOBER 

IF I had ridden horses in the lists, 
Fought wars, gone pilgrimage to fabled 
lands, 
Seen Pharaoh's drinking cups of amethysts, 

Held dead Queens' secret jewels in my hands — 
I would have laid my triumphs at your feet, 

And worn with no ignoble pride my scars. . . . 
But I can only offer you, my sweet, 

The songs I made on many a night of stars. 

Yet have I worshipped honour, loving you; 

Your graciousness and gentle courtesy, 
With ringing and romantic trumpets blew 

A mighty music through the heart of me, — 
A joy as cleansing as the wind that fills 
The open spaces on the sunny hills. 



[751 



WARFARE 

WHEN I consider all thy dignity, 
Thy honour which my baseness doth accuse 
To my own soul, thy pride which doth refuse 
Less than the suffering thou hast given me, 
My hope is chilled to fear. How stealthily 
Must I dispose my forces ! With what ruse 
And ambush snatch the bearer of good news, 
Ere I can escalade austerity! 

Easier it were to fling the baleful lord 

And the infernal legions of the Pit, 
To ride undaunted at that roaring horde : 

But who shall armour me with delicate wit 
Sufficient for thine overthrow? What sword 

Win to the tower where thy perfections sit? 

March 10th, 1918. 



[76] 



TREASON 

THOU hast renounced thy proud and royal 
state ; 
Deserted thy strong men-at-arms who stand 
Attentive to imperious command; 
And with a small key at the groaning gate — 
Sweet traitress ! — met thine enemy. The great 
Moon threw a white enchantment o'er the 

land 
When in my hand I caught thy yielded hang!, 
And laughing kissed thy laughing lips elate. 

For of thy queenly folly thou hast laid 

In sandalwood thy stiff, embroidered gown; 

With happiness apparelled thou hast strayed 
Incognita through many a sunlit town, 

Heedless of our uncaptained hosts arrayed 
Or of the flags their battles shall bring down. 

March \"]th, 1918. 



[77] 



THERE WAS AN HOUR 

THERE was an hour when stars flung out 
A magical wild melody, 
When all the woods became alive 
With elfin dance and revelry. 

A holiday for happy hearts! — 

The trees shone silver in the moon, 

And clapped their gleaming hands to see 
Night like a radiant kindled noon ! 

For suddenly a new world woke 

At one new touch of wizardry, 
When my love from her mirthful mouth 

Spoke words of sweet true love to me. 

February yth, 1918. 



[78] 



NOCTURNE 

WHEN evening hangs her lamp above the 
hill 

And calls her children to her waiting hearth, 
Where pain is shed away and love and wrath, 
And every tired head lies white and still — 

Dear heart, will you not light a lamp for me, 
And gather up the meaning of the lands, 
Silent and luminous within your hands, 

Where peace abides and mirth and mystery? 

That I may sit with you beside the fire, 
And ponder on the thing no man may guess, 
Your soul's great majesty and gentleness, 

Until the last sad tongue of flame expire. 

December 21st, 1916. 



[79] 



PRIDE 

WHO having known through night a great 
star falling 
With half the host of heaven in its wake, 
And o'er chaotic seas a dread voice calling, 
And a new purple dawn of presage break, 

Can hope to conquer thee, proud Son of Morning, 
Arrayed in mighty lusts of heart and eyes, 

With blood-red rubies set for thine adorning 
And sorceries wherein men's souls grow wise? 

Who shall withstand the onslaught of thy chariot, 
Who ride to battle with thy gorgeous kings? 

Dost thou not count the silver to Iscariot, 

And Tyrian scarlet and the marvellous rings? 

But ivory limbs and the flung festal roses, 
The maddening music and the Chian wine, 

Are overpast when one glad heart discloses 
A pride more strange and terrible than thine I 

That looked unsatisfied upon thy splendour, 
And turned, all shaken with his love, away 
[80] 



PRIDE 

To one dear face that holds him true and tender 
Until the trumpets of the Judgment Day. 

A pride that binds him till the last fierce ember 
Shall fade from pride's tall roaring pyre in hell; 

The gentleness and grace he shall remember, 
The flower she gave, the love that she did tell. 



f8i] 



BALLADE OF SHEEP BELLS 

I LEFT behind the green and gracious weald, 
And climbing stiffly up the steep incline 
Found high above each little cloistered field, 
Above the sombre autumn woods of pine — 
Where gentle skies are clear and crystalline — 
The place remote from dense and foolish towns; 
And there, where all the winds are sharp with 
brine, 
I heard the sheep hells ringing on the Downs. 

The sun hung out of heaven like a shield 
Emblazoned o'er with heraldry divine. 

I suddenly saw, as though with eyes unsealed, 
A portent sent me for an awful sign, 
A fairy sea whereon the cold stars shine; 

And standing on the sward of withered browns, 
Burnt by the noontide and cropped close and 
fine, 

/ heard the sheep hells ringing on the Downs. 

A carillon of delicate music pealed 

And tingled through the steeple of my spine; 

My soul was filled with loveliness and healed. 
I know how joy and anguish intertwine — 
[82] 



BALLADE OF SHEEP BELLS 

But this shall greatly comfort me as wine, 
Good wine, comforts a man and sweetly drowns 

The many sorrows of this heart of mine — 
/ heard the sheep bells ringing on the Downs. 

U Envoi 

Prince, old bell-wether of an ancient line, 

When you're dead mutton I will weave you 
crowns 

Of living laurel — if on you I dine — 

/ heard the sheep bells ringing on the Downs! 



[331 



BALLADE OF A FEROCIOUS CATHOLIC 

THERE is a term to every loud dispute, 
A final reckoning I'm glad to say: 
Some people end discussion with their boot; 
Others, the prigs, will simply walk away. 
But I, within a world of rank decay, 
Can face its treasons with a flaming hope, 

Undaunted by faith's foemen in array — ■ 
/ drain a mighty tankard to the Pope! 

They do not ponder on the Absolute, 
But wander in a fog of words astray. 

They have no rigid creed one can confute, 
No hearty dogmas riotous and gay, 
But feebly mutter through thin lips and grey 

Things foully fashioned out of sin and soap ; — 
But I, until my body rests in clay, 

/ drain a mighty tankard to the Pope! 

I've often thought that I would like to shoot 
The modernists on some convenient day; 

Pull out eugenists by their noxious root; 
The welfare-worker chattering like a jay 
I'd publicly and pitilessly slay 
[84] 



BALLADE OF A FEROCIOUS CATHOLIC 

With blunderbuss or guillotine or rope, 

Burn at the stake, or boil in oil, or flay — 
/ drain a mighty tankard to the Pope. 

U Envoi 

Prince, proud prince Lucifer, your evil sway 
Is over many who in darkness grope: 

But as for me, I go another way — 
/ drain a mighty tankard to the Pope! 

March 2nd, 1918. 



[85] 



DAWN 

I HAVE beheld above the wooded hill 
Thy tender loveliness, O Morning, break; 
Beheld the solemn gladness thou dost spill 
On eyes not yet awake. 

But why recall unto the painful day 

Wild passions sleeping like oblivious kings? 

The broad day comes and thou dost speed away 
Westward on swift wide wings ! 

December z^rd, 1917. 



[86] 



SUNSET 

I HAVE seen death in many a varied guise, 
Cruel and tender, rude and beautiful, 
Looking through windows in a young child's eyes, 

Stealing as soft as shadows in a pool, 
Falling a sudden arrow of dismay, 

Blown on a bugle with an iron note : 
The slow and gentle progress of decay, 

The taking of a strong man by the throat. 

I have seen flowers wither and the leaf 
Of lusty Summer burn to hectic red. 

But ah! that splendid death untouched by grief: 
The sun with glad and golden-visaged head 

Superbly standing on his deadly pyre, 
« And sinking in a sea of jewelled fire! 

February 10th, 1918. 



[87] 



PEACE 

HOSE lives are bound 

By sleep and custom and tranquillity 
Have never found 
That peace which is a riven mystery 



w 



Who only share 
The calm that doth this stream, these orchards 
bless, 

Breathe but the air 
Of unimpassioned pagan quietness. . . . 

Initiate, 
Pain burns about your head, an aureole, 

Who hold in state 
The utter joy which wounds and heals the soul. 

You kiss the Rod 
With dumb, glad lips, and bear to worlds apart 

The peace of God 
Which passeth all understanding in your heart. 



[88] 



CARRION 

THE guns are silent for an hour; the sounds 
Of war forget their doom; the work is 
done — 
Strong men, uncounted corpses heaped in mounds, 
Are rotting in the sun. 

Foul carrion — souls till yesterday ! — are these 
With piteous faces in the bloodied mire; 

But where are now their generous charities? 
Their laughter, their desire? 

In each rent breast, each crushed and shattered 
skull 

Lived joy and sorrow, tenderness and pain, 
Hope, ardours, passions brave and beautiful 

Among these thousands slain ! 

A little time ago they heard the call 

Of mating birds in thicket and in brake; 

They wondering saw night's jewelled curtain fall 
And all the pale stars wake. . . . 

Bodies most marvellously fashioned, stark, 

Strewn broadcast out upon the trampled sod — 
[89] 



CARRION 

These temples of the Holy Ghost — O hark!- 
These images of God! 

Flesh, as the Word became in Bethlehem, 
Houses to hold their Sacramental Lord: 

Swiftly and terribly to harvest them 
Swept the relentless sword! 

Happy if in your dying you can give 
Some symbol of the Eternal Sacrificed, 

Some pardon to the hearts of those who live- 
Dying the death of Christ! 

Feast of the Epiphany, 
January 6th, 1917. 



[90] 



THE BUILDING OF THE CITY 

I JOHN, who once was called by Him in jest 
« Boanerges, the thunder's son, 
Who lay in tenderness upon His breast — 
Now that my days are done, 

And a great gathering glory fills my sight, 

Would tell my children e'er I go 
Of Him I saw with head and hair as white 

As white wool — white as snow. 

The face before which heaven and earth did flee, 
The burnished feet, the eyes of flame, 

The seven stars bright with awful mystery, 
And the Ineffable Name! 

Yet I who saw the four dread horsemen ride, 

The vials of the wrath of God, 
Beheld a greater thing: the Lamb's pure Bride, 

The golden floors she trod. 

How Babylon, Babylon was overthrown, 
And how Euphrates flowed with blood — 

Ah, but His mercy through the wide world sown, 
The tree with healing bud ! 

[91] 



THE BUILDING OF THE CITY 

I heard, among the hosts of Paradise, 
The glad new song that never tires, 

A Lamb as it had been slain in sacrifice 
Enthroned amid the choirs. 

After the utmost woes have taken toll, 
And ravens plucked the eyes of kings, 

God's own strange peace shall come upon the soul 
On gentle, dove-like wings. 

The Dragon cast into the voidless night, 

God's city cometh from above, 
Built by the sword of Michael and his might, 

But founded in God's love. 



[92] 



EDEN RE-OPENED 

NO man regarded where God sat 
Among the rapt seraphic brows, 
And God's heart heavy grew thereat, 
At man's long absence from His house. 

Then from the iris-circled throne 
A strange and secret word is said, 

And straightway hath an angel flown, 
On wings of feathered sunlight sped, 
Through space to where the world shone 
red. 

Reddest of all the stars of night 

To the hoar watchers of the spheres, 

But ashy cold to man's dim sight, 

And filled with sins and woes and fears 
And the waste weariness of years. 

(No laughter rippled in the grass, 
No light upon the jewelled sea; 

The sky hung sullenly as brass, 
And men went groping tortuously.) 

But the stern warden of the Gate 

Broke his dread sword upon his kne^s, 
[93] 



EDEN RE-OPENED 

And opened wide the fields where wait 
The loveless unremembered trees, 
The sealed and silent mysteries. 

And the scales fell from man's eyes, 
And his heart woke again, as when 

Adam found Eve in Paradise; 

And joy was made complete . . . and then 
God entered in and spoke with men. 



[94] 



THE HOLY SPRING 

THE radiant feet of Christ now lead 
The dancing sunny hours, 
The ancient Earth is young again 
With growing grass and warm white rain 
And hedgerows full of flowers. 

The lilac and laburjium show 

The glory of their bud, 
And scattered on each hawthorn spray 
The snow-white and the crimson may — 

The may as red as blood. 

The bluebells in the deep dim woods 

Like fallen heavens lie, 
And daffodils and daffodils 
Upon a thousand little hills 

Are waving to the sky. 

The corn imprisoned in the mould 

Has burst its wintry tomb, 
And on each burdened orchard tree 
Which stood an austere calvary 

The apple blossom bloom. 

[95] 



THE HOLY SPRING 

The kiss of Christ has brought to life 

The marvel of the sod. 
Oh, joy has rent its chrysalis 
To flash it's jewelled wings, and is 
A dream of beauty and of bliss — 

The loveliness of God. 



May 1917. 



[96] 



VIATICUM 

DEAR God, not only do Thou come at last 
When death hath filled my heart with 
dread affright, 
But when in gathered dark I meet aghast 
The mimic death that falls on me at night. 

The daily dying, when alone I tread 

The valley of the shadow, breast the Styx, 

With shrouded soul and body stiff in bed . . . 
And no companion from the welcome pyx! 

How should I face disarmed and unawares 
The phantoms of the Pit oblivion brings — 

My will surrendered, mind unapt for snares, 
Eyes blinded by the evil, shuddering wings, 

Did not the sunset stand encoped in gold 
For priestly offices, 'mid censers swung, 

And with anointed thumb and finger hold 

The symbolled Godhead to my eager tongue? 

Then with my body's trance there doth descend 
Peace on my eyelids, goodness that shall keep 

My wandering feet, and at my side a friend 
Through all the winding caverns of my sleep. 

August izth, 1917. 

[97] 



PUNISHMENT 



WHAT vengeful rod 
Is laid upon my bleeding shoulders? 
What scourge, O God, 
Makes known my shame to all beholders? 



Through what vast skies 
Crashes Thy wrath like shuddering thunders? 
• •••*. 

Before my eyes 
Thou dost display the wonder of wonders ! 

As punishment 
To one whom sin should bind in prison, 

Hath Mercy sent 
Word of the crucified arisen ! 

Guilt's penalty 
Exacted — past my reeling reason! — 

Which lays on me 
Love — as a whip fit for my Treason ! 

March 3rd, 1918. 



[98] 



AFTER COMMUNION 

"OW art Thou in my house of feeble flesh, 
O Word made flesh ! My burning soul by 
Thine 
Caught mystically in a living mesh! 

Now is the royal banquet, now the wine, 
The body broken by the courteous Host 

Who is my humble Guest — a Guest adored — 
Though once I spat upon, scourged at the post, 
Hounded to Calvary and slew my Lord ! 

My name is Legion, but separate and alone; 

Wash, wash, dear Crucified, my Pilate hand! 
Rejected Stone, be Thou my corner-stone ! 

Like Mary at the cross's foot I stand; 
Like Magdalene upon my sins I grieve ; 
Like Thomas do I touch Thee and believe. 

December i6t/i, 1917. 



[99] 



THE UNIVERSAL MOTHER 

WHO standing thrilled in his bewilderment 
Can tell thy humble ways, 
The hidden paths on which thy white feet went 
Through all thy lonely days? 

From what deep root the Lily of the Lord 

To grace and beauty grew, 
Or in what fires was tempered the keen sword 

That pierced thy bosom through? 

But we may turn and find within our hands 

Our souls' strange bread and wine, 
The gathered meanings of thy starry lands 

Where mystic roses shine. 

Heaven's air might grow for us too cold and tense, 

Her towers far and faint, 
Did we not know thy sorrowful innocence, 

Or soldier, singer, saint, 

Earth's heroes with earth's poor not kneel and tell 

Their full hearts' burdenings 
To those dear eyes before which Gabriel 

Bent low with folded wings. 
[ioo] 



THE UNIVERSAL MOTHER 

The soldier shall remember whose the heel 

That crushed the serpent's head, 
How mighty in thy hand hath been the steel 

That dyed thy bosom red. 

The singer weave for thee a cloak of light 

Where earth's wild colours run, 
As God hath crowned thee with the stars of night 

And clothed thee with the sun. 

The saint who in a cloister cool and dim 

His difficult road hath kept 
Shall think of thee whose body cloistered Him 

When in thy womb He slept. 

And thou shalt call to thee the poor of earth 

To share thy joy with them, 
And fill them with thy magnitude and mirth 

In many a Bethlehem. 

February \th, 1917. 



[IOI] 



THE BOASTER 

IF the last blissful star should fade and wither, 
If one by one 
Orion and the Pleiades crash and crumble; 
The lordly sun 

Be turned away, a beggar, all his triumphs 

Gone down in doom, 
Wandering unregarded through the cosmos, 

None giving him room. 

Then would I shout defiant to the whirlwinds; 

Boastingly cry, 
"Go wreck the world, its towering hills and 
waters ! 

But I, even I, 

"Whose body was flung out upon the dungheap 

With weeds to rot, 
Still keep my soul unshaken by the ruin 

That harms me not! 

"True, I have fled from many a shameful battle, 

Did cringe and cower 
Before my foes, but who can ever rob me 

Of one great hour?" 

[102] 



THE BOASTER 

For joy rang through me like a silver trumpet; 

About my head 
The tiny flowers flapped in the breeze like banners 

Of royal red. 

And suddenly the seven deeps of heaven 

Were cloven apart, 
When love stood in your eyes and shone and 
trembled 

Within your heart. 

February ^rd, 1918. 



[103] 



UNWED 

IF I go down to death uncomforted 
By love's great conquest and its great sur- 
render, 
Bearing my soul along, unwed, unwed; 

(Your darling hands' caresses swift and tender 
Lacking upon my head, upon my lips 

Your lips) ; and in my heart love unfulfilled, 
And in my eyes a blind apocalypse, 
Bereft of all the glory I have willed; 

I shall go proudly for your dear love's sake, 
Triumphant for brief memories, but tragic 

Because of those large hopes that fail and break 
Beneath Fate's wizard-wand of cruel magic — 

But ah, Fate could not touch me if I stood 

Completed by your love's beatitude ! 

December 15th, 1917. 



[IO4] 



WED 

I KNOW the winds are rhythmical 
In unison with your footfall. 
I know that in your heart you keep 
The secret of the woodland's sleep. 

You met the blossom-bearing May — 
Sweet sister! — on the road half way, 
And she has laid upon your hair 
The coloured coronal you wear. 

But ah ! the white wings of the Dove 
Flutter about the head I love, 
And on your bosom doth repose 
The beauty of the Mystic Rose, 

That I must add to poetry 
A dark and fearful ecstasy; 
For in the house of joy you bless 
Unworthiness with holiness. 



[105] 



ENGLAND 



LIKE some good ship that founders in the sea, 
Like granite towers that crumble into dust, 
So pass the emblems of thine empery. 

But O immortal Mother and august, 
Ardours of English saint and bard and king 

Blend simply with thy soul, even as their bones 
Mingle with English soil. Their spirits sing 

A great song lordly as is a loud wind's tones. 
Decayed by gold and ease and loathly pride, 

We had forgot our greatness and become 
Huckstering empire-builders, and denied 

The excellent name of freedom . . . till the drum 
Woke glory such as met the eyes of Drake, 
Or Alfred when he saw the heathen break 1 

II 

Where shall we find thee? In the avarice 

That robs our brave adventures? In the shame 
Spoiling our splendours? In the sacrifice 

Of tears we wrung from Ireland? Nay, thy 
name 

[106] 



ENGLAND 

Is written secretly in kindliness 

Upon the patient faces of the poor, 
In that good anger wherewith thou didst bless 

Our hearts, when beat upon the shaking door 
Strong hands of hell. . . . Whether before the 
flood 

We sink, or out of agonies reborn 
Learn once again the meaning of our blood, 

Laughter and liberty — a sacred scorn 
Is ours irrevocably since we stood 

And heard the barbarians' guns across the 
morn. 

December z^th and zdth, 1917. 



[107] 



LYRIC LOVE 

WHEN kindly years have given me grace 
To read your spirit through; 
To see the starlight on your face, 
Upon your hair the dew; 

To touch the fingers of your hands, 

The shining wealth they hold; 
To find in dim and dreamy lands 

That tender dusks enfold 

The ancient sorrows that were sealed, 

The hidden wells of joy, 
The secrets that were unrevealed 

To one who was a boy. 

Then to my patient ponderings 

Will fruits of solace fall, 
When I have learned through many Springs, 

Mighty and mystical, 

To hear through sounds of brooks and birds 

Love in the leafy grove, 
As in my lyric heart your words 

Bestir a lyric love. 

[108] 



LYRIC LOVE 

Then I shall brood, grown good and wise, 

The truth of fairy tales, 
And greet romance with gay surprise 

In woods of nightingales. 

And find, with hoary head and sage, 

In songs which I have sung 
The meanings of the end of age — 

The rapture of the young! 

February nt/i, 1918. 



Fl09l 



DRUMS OF DEFEAT 



THE FOOL 

A SHOUT of laughter and of scorn, 
A million jeering lips and eyes — 
And in the sight of all men born 

The wildest of earth's madmen dies! 

Whose trust was put in empty words 
To-day is numbered with the dead; 

To-morrow crows and evil birds 

Shall pluck those strange eyes from his head ! 

The fellows of this country clown 
Are scattered (fool beyond belief!), 

All blown away like thistledown, 
Except a harlot and a thief. 

And shall he shatter fates with these? 

(He that would neither strive nor cry) 
Or thunder through the Seven Seas? 

Or shake the stars down from the sky? 

Have mercy and humility 

Become unconquerable swords, 
That Caiaphas must tremblingly 

Kneel with the world's imperial lords 
[113] 



THE FOOL 

§ 

Before this crazy carpenter — 
This body writhing on a rod — 

And worship in that bloody hair 
The dreadful foolishness of God? 

A shout of laughter and of scorn, 
A million jeering lips and eyes — 

And in the sight of all men born 

The wildest of earth's madmen dies! 



tii4l 



DON QUIXOTE 

THE air is valiant with drums 
And honourable the skies, 
When he rides singing as he comes 

With solemn, dreamy eyes — 
Of swinging of the splendid swords, 
And crashing of the nether lords, 
When Hell makes onslaught with its hordes 
In desperate emprise. 

He rides along the roads of Spain 

The champion of the world, 
For whom great soldans live again 

With Moorish beards curled — 
But all their spears shall not avail 
With one who weareth magic mail, 
This hero of an epic tale 

And his brave gauntlet hurled! 

Clangour of horses and of arms 

Across the quiet fields, 
Herald and trumpeter, alarms 

Of bowmen and of shields; 

[115] 



DON QUIXOTE 

When doubt that twists and is afraid 
Is shattered in the last crusade, 
Where flaunts the plume and falls the blade 
The cavalier wields. 

Although in that eternal cause 

No liegemen gather now, 
Or flowered dames to grant applause, 

Yet on his naked brow 
The victor's laurels interwreath; 
But he no dower can bequeath 
But sword snapped short and empty sheath 

And errantry and vow ! 

Against his foolish innocence 

No man alive can stand, 
Nor any giant drive him hence 

With sling or club or brand — 
For where his angry bugle blows 
There fall unconquerable foes; 
Of mighty men of war none knows 

To stay his witless hand. 

All legendary wars grow tame 
And every tale gives place 
[116] 



DON QUIXOTE 

Before the knight's unsullied name 

And his romantic face : 
Yea, he shall break the stoutest bars 
And bear his courage and his scars 
Beyond the whirling moons and stars 

And all the suns of space I 



[117] 



IRELAND 

BESIDE your bitter waters rise 
The Mystic Rose, the Holy Tree, 
Immortal courage in your eyes, 
And pain and liberty. 

The stricken arms, the cloven shields, 

The trampled plumes, the shattered drum, 

The swords of your lost battlefields 
To hopeless battles come. 

And though your scattered remnants know 
Their shameful rout, their fallen kings, 

Yet shall the strong, victorious foe 
Not understand these things : 

The broken ranks that never break, 
The merry road your rabble trod, 

The awful laughter they shall take 
Before the throne of God. 



[118] 



IN MEMORIAM 
Patrick Henry Pearse 

Executed May ird, 191 6 



IN this grey morning wrapped in mist and rain 
You stood erect beneath the sullen sky, 
A heart which held its peace and noble pain, 
A brave and gentle eye ! 

The last of all your silver songs are sung; 

Your fledgling dreams on broken wings are 
dashed — 
For suddenly a tragic sword was swung 

And ten true rifles crashed. 

By one who walks aloof in English ways 

Be this high word of praise and sorrow said: 

He lived with honour all his lovely days, 
And is immortal, deadl 



rii9] 



MATER DESOLATA 

To Margaret Pearse 

TO you the dreary night's long agony, 
The anguish, and the laden heart that 
broke 
Its vase of burning tears, the voiceless cry, — 

And then the horror of that blinding stroke! 
To you all this — and yet to you much more. 

God pressed into the chalice of your pain 
A starry triumph, when the sons you bore 

Were written on the roll of Ireland's slain. 
Let no man touch your glorious heritage, 

Or pluck one pang of sorrow from your heart, 
Or stain with any pity the bright page 

Emblazoning the holy martyrs' part. 
Ride as a queen your splendid destiny, 
Since death is swallowed up in victory! 



[120] 



THE STIRRUP CUP 

DRAW rein; there's the inn where the lamps 
show plain — 
Where we never may drink together again. 
While the stars are lost in the slate-cold sky 
Let us drink good ale before we die 
In the wind and bitter rain! 

Your sword is made ready upon your hip? 
Then once again, man, in good-fellowship ! 
Though hunted and outlawed and fugitive 
We shall drink together again if we live — 
Set the tankard to your lip ! 

Honour and death and — how goes the tune? 
See the clouds rift and disrobe the moon ! 
And a blood-red streak in the sullen skies 
And — Honour and death and adventure's eyes — 
Now spurs — for they'll be here soon! 



[121] 



THE ENSIGN 

HIGH up above the wooded ridge 
Beams out a round benignant moon 
Upon the village and the bridge 

Through which the slumberous waters croon. 

Now polished silver is the mill; 

And, clad in ghostly mysteries, 
The church tower glimmers on the hill 

Among the sad, abiding trees; 

And watched by its familiar star 

Sleeps each small house, so still and white — 
From all the noise and blood of war, 

O God, how far removed to-night! 

Unconscious of their destiny 

How many drew this air for breath; 

Here lived and loved . . . and now they see 
The terrible, swift shape of death. 

The bounty of these quiet skies, 

The tender beauty of these lands, 
Still sheds a peace upon their eyes, 

And binds their hearts and nerves their hands. 
[122] 



THE ENSIGN 

That they who only thought to know 
This valley in the moonlight furled, 

Have heard immortal trumpets blow, 
And shake the pillars of the world! 



[123] 



BALLADE OF ORCHARDS 

THOUGH Jeshurun kicks and grows fatter 
and fatter, 
And chinks in his pockets the gold of his gain, 
Yet up in the gables the young sparrows chatter, 
The corn-fields are rich with the promise of 

grain, 
The hedges are yellow, and (balm to the 
brain!) 
Their pink and white blossoms the cherry trees 
scatter — 
The blossoming orchards of England remain! 

Long lines of our soldiers swing by with a clatter, 
To die in their thousands by river and plain, 

In lands where the gathering loud torrents batter, 
They heap the hills high with heroical slain — 
But far in the weald how the misty moons wane ! 

And deep in a silence no anger can shatter 
The blossoming orchards of England remain! 

The world is a fool and as mad as a hatter — 
And poets and lovers were sent her for bane — 
[124] 



BALLADE OF ORCHARDS 

Yet theirs are the ears which can catch the first 
patter, 
The prophet of all God's abundance of rain, 
The smell of earth earthy and wholesome 
again ; 
And from the drenched ground where the spent 
bullets spatter 
The blossoming orchards of England remain! 

L'Envoi 

Princes and potentates, ye whom men flatter, 
Harken a moment to this my refrain — 

Ye shall pass as a dream, and it will not much 
matter — 
The blossoming orchards of England remain! 



[125] 



A GREAT WIND 

A GREAT wind blows through the pine trees, 
A clean salt wind from sea, 
A loud wind full of all healing 

Blows kindly but boisterously; 
Oh, a good wind blows through the pine trees 
And the heart and mind of me ! 



A wind stirs the long grass lightly 
And the dear young flowers of May, 

And blows in the English meadows 
The breath of a Summer's day — 

But this wind rings with honour 
And is wet with the cold sea spray. 

There are straits where the tall ships founder 
And no live thing may draw breath, 

Where men look at splendid, angry skies 
And hear what the thunder saith: 

Where men look their last at glory 
And bravely drink of death. 

There is much afoot this evening 
In these pine woods by the sea, 

[126] 



A GREAT WIND 

And no branch shall endure until morning 
That is rotten on the tree — 

Nor any decayed thing endure in my soul 
When God's wind blows through me! 



[127] 



BIRTHDAY SONNET 

HOW shall I find the words of perfect praise, 
To give you back the gladness and the 
mirth, 
With which you filled my hands, the lyric days 

Your gracious bounty gave me in my dearth? 
My song fails on the wing, and yet I know 

The meaning of Spring's living ecstasy, 
The laughing prophecy the March winds blow 
Among the buds, and through the heart of me. 

I know, I know the rose and silver dress, 

Wherewith God clothed that clear and virginal 
morn, 

Which came to you in joyful gentleness, 

The hour of shy delight when you were born. 

I know the innocence and sweet surprise, 

The waiting earth made ready for your eyes. 

March 27th, 1917 



[128] 



SILENCE 

THOUGH I should deck you with my jew- 
elled rhyme, 
And spread my songs a carpet at your feet, 
Where men may see unchanged through changing 
time 
Your face a pattern in sad songs and sweet; 
Though I should blow your honour through the 
earth 
Or touch your gentleness on gentle strings, 
Or sing abroad your beauty and your worth — 
Dearest, yet these were all imperfect things. 

Rather in lovely silence will I keep 

The heart's shut song no words of mine may 
mar, 
No words of mine enrich. The ways of sleep 

And prayer and pain, all things that lonely are, 
All humble things that worship and rejoice 
Shall weave a spell of silence for my voice. 



[129] 



AT YELVERTON 

WHEN into Yelverton I came 
I found the bracken all aflame, 
The tors in their unyielding line, 
The air as comforting as wine, 
The swinging wind, the singing sun 
At Yelverton. 

At Yelverton the moor is kind 
And blows its healing through my mind, 
The hunchback skyline lies a mist 
Of purple and of amethyst, 
And up and down the smooth roads run 
At Yelverton. 

At Yelverton a man may stand, 
The whole of Devon within his hand, 
The tors in their austerity, 
And far away the basking sea, 
A cloth of shining silver spun 
At Yelverton. 

At Yelverton a man may keep 
Deep silence and a deeper sleep, 
[130] 



AT Y EL VERT ON 

Yet know the brave recurring dream 
Of kingly cider, queenly cream 
To bless him when his days are done 
At Yelverton. 



[131] 



THE JOY OF THE WORLD 

FOR your joy do the long grasses rustle, the 
tree-tops stir 
Where the wind moves eagerly through the pine 

and the fir; 
Alert for your coming the woods and the mead- 
ows all wait; 
The buttercups grow and the turtle calls to his 
mate. 



And God for your clothing fashioned in patience 

the sun, 
A cloak wrought of glory and fire where dreadful 

dyes run, 
Saffron and crimson and sapphire and gold, as is 

meet; 
And stars to be set on your head and stars under 

your feet. 

For you, His most lovely of daughters, the mighty 

God bowed 
From heaven to give you your dowry of sunset and 

cloud; 

C x 3 2 ] 



THE JOY OF THE WORLD 

And splendid in light and in worship were Ga- 
briel's wings, 

When he breathed in your bosom the hope of 
impossible things. 



Sudden and dear was the secret he whispered to 

you, 
Of one who should quietly fall to the earth with 

the dew; 
As dew that at night in the valleys distils upon 

fleece, 
With no shattering trump did He come but in 

terrible peace. 

In your hands that are sweeter than honey, in all 

the wide earth 
God laid the desire of the nations, their home and 

their mirth, 
And gave to your merciful keeping man's joy and 

man's rest, 
And under incredible skies a babe at your 

breast. 

[133] 



THE JOY OF THE WORLD 

And though the stars wane and the royal deep 

colours should fade, 
Yet still shall endure in the heart and the lips of a 

Maid, 
The sweep of the archangel's pinions — the humble 

accord — 
The song — the dim stable — the night — and the 

birth of the Lord! 

For your joy do the long grasses rustle, the tree- 
tops stir 

Where the wind moves eagerly through the pine 
and the fir; 

Alert for your coming the woods and the meadows 
all wait; 

The buttercups grow and the turtle calls to his 
mate. 



[134] 



GRATITUDE 

HOW shall I answer God and stand, 
My naked life within my hand, 
To plead upon the Judgment Day? 
Seeing the glory in array 
Of cherubim and seraphim, 
What answer shall I give to Him? 

I was too dull of heart and sense 
To read His cryptic providence, 
Its strange and intricate device 
Was hidden from my foolish eyes. 
My gratitude could not reach up 
To the sharing of His awful cup, 
To the blinding light of mystery 
And the painful pomp of sanctity. 

But since as a happy child I went 
With love and laughter and content 
Along the road of simple things, 
Making no idle questionings; 
Since young and careless I did keep 
The cool and cloistered halls of sleep, 
[135] 



GRATITUDE 

And took my daily drink and food, 
Finding them very, very good — 
God may perhaps be pleased to see 
Such signs of sheer felicity. 

But if I somehow should be given 

An attic in His storied heaven, 

I'm sure I should be far apart 

From Catherine of the wounded heart, 

Teresa of the flaming soul, 

And Bruno's sevenfold aureole, 

And be told, of course, I'm not to mix 

With the Bernards or the Dominies, 

Or thrust my company upon 

St. Michael or the great St. John. 

Yet God may grant it me to sit 
And sing (with little skill or wit) 
My intimate canticles of praise 
For all life's dear and gracious days — 
Though hardly a single syllable 
Of what St. Raphael has to tell, 
The triumphs of the cosmic wars, 
The raptures and the jewelled scars 
[136] 



GRATITUDE 

Of the high lords of martyrdom- 
Hardly a word of this will come 
To strike my understanding ear, 
Hardly a single word, I fear! 



But woe upon the Judgment Day 
If my heart gladdened not at May; 
Nor woke to hear with the waking birds 
The morning's sweet and winsome words; 
Nor loved to see laburnums fling 
Their pennons to the winds of Spring; 
Nor watched among the expectant grass 
The Summer's painted pageant pass; 
Nor thrilled with blithe beatitude 
Within a kindling Autumn wood 
Or when each separate twig did lie 
Etched sharp upon the wintry sky. 
If out of all my sunny hours 
I brought no chaplet of their flowers; 
If I gave no kiss to His lovely feet 
When they shone as poppies in the wheat; 
If no rose to me were a Mystic Rose, 
No Snow were whiter than the snows; 
[137] 



GRATITUDE 

If in my baseness I let fall 
At once His cross and His carnival . . 
Then must I take my ungrateful head 
To where the lakes of Hell burn red. 



[138] 



IN DOMO JOHANNIS 

HERE rest the thin worn hands which fondled 
Him, 

The trembling lips which magnified the Lord, 
Who looked upon His handmaid, the young, slim 

Mary at her meek tasks, and here the sword 
Within the soul of her whose anguished eyes 

Gazed at the stars which watch Gethsemane, 
And saw the sun fail in the stricken skies. 

In these dim rooms she guards the treasury 
Of her white memories — the strange, sweet face 

More marred than any man's, the tender, fain 
And eager words, the wistful human grace, 

The mysteries of glory, joy and pain, 
And that hope tremulous, half-sob, half-song, 
Ringing through night — "How long, O Lord, how 
long?" 



[139] 



AT WOODCHESTER 

HARK how a silver music falls 
Between these meek monastic walls, 
And airy flute and psaltery 
Awaken heavenly melody! 

Yet not to unentuned ears 
May come the joyance of the spheres, 
And only humbled hearts may see 
The humble heart of mystery. 

Where tread in light and lilting ways 
Bright angels through the dance's maze 
On grassy floors to meet the just 
In robes of woven diamond dust. 

And jewelled daisies burst to greet 
The flutter of the Blessed's feet: 
Along the cloister's gathered gloom 
Lilies and mystic roses bloom. 

Grown in the hush of hidden hours 
Thoughts fairer than the summer flowers 
Lift up their sweet and living heads, 
Crystalline whites and sanguine reds ! 
[140] 



AT WOODCHESTER 

Who keep in lowly pageantry- 
Silence a lovely ceremony;* 
Who set a seal upon their eyes 
Responsive only to the skies; 

Who in a quick obedience move 
Along the hallowed paths of love, 
Win at last to that secret place 
Adorned with the glory of God's face. 

And as each eve the tired sun 
Sinks softly down, the long day done, 
Upon the bosom of the west — 
So, even so, upon God's breast 

Each weary heart is folded deep 
Into His arms in quiet sleep, 
And sheltered safe, all warm and bright, 
Against the phantoms of the night. 

*"Quia silentium est pulchra caeremonia" : 
Ex Constitutionibus Fratrum 
S. Ordinis Praedicatorum. 



[HI] 



"FOR THEY SHALL POSSESS 
THE EARTH" 

YOU who were beauty's worshipper, 
Her ardent lover, in this place 
You have seen Beauty face to face; 
And known the wistful eyes of her, 
And kissed the hands of Poverty, 
And praised her tattered bravery. 

You shall be humble, give your days 

To silence and simplicity; 

And solitude shall come to be 
The goal of all your winding ways; 
When pride and youthful pomp of words 
Fly far away like startled birds. 

Possessing nothing, you shall know 
The heart of all things in the earth, 
Their secret agonies and mirth, 
The awful innocence of snow, 
The sadness of November leaves, 
The joy of fields of girded sheaves. 

A shelter from the driving rain 

Your high renouncement of desire; 
Food it shall be and wine and fire; 

[142] 



'FOR THEY SHALL POSSESS THE EARTH' 

And Peace shall enter once again 

As quietly as dreams in sleep 

The hidden trysting-place you keep. 

You shall grow humble as the grass, 
And patient as each slow, dumb beast; 
And as their fellow — yea the least — 

Yield stoat and hedgehog room to pass; 

And learn the ignorance of men 

Before the robin and the wren. 

The things so terrible and sweet 
You strove to say in accents harsh, 
The frogs are croaking on the marsh, 
The crickets chirping at your feet — 
Oh, they can teach you unafraid 
The meaning of the songs you made. 

Till clothed in white humilities, 
Each happening that doth befall, 
Each thought of yours be musical, 
As wind is musical in the trees, 
When strong as sun and clean as dew 
Your old dead songs come back to you. 
[143] 



BALLADE OF THE BEST SONG 
IN THE WORLD 

KNOW a sheaf of splendid songs by heart 
Which stir the blood or move the soul to 
tears, 
Of death or honour or of love's sweet smart, 

The runes and legends of a thousand years; 
And some of them go plaintively and slow, 

And some are jolly like the earth in May — 
But this is really the best song I know: 
I-tiddly-iddly-i-ti-iddly-ay. 

I sang it in a house-boat on the Dart 

To several members of the House of Peers. 
The Editor of the Exchange and Mart 

(A man of taste) stood up and led the cheers. 
I carolled it at Christmas in the snow, 

I hummed it on my summer holiday — 
Doh-ray-me-fah-sol-la-fah-me-ray-doh — 

I-tiddly-iddly-i-ti-iddly-ay. 

It made a gathering of Fabians start 

And put their fingers in their outraged ears. 

They did not understand my subtle art, 

But though they only gave me scoffs and jeers, 
[144] 



BALLADE OF BEST SONG IN THE WORLD 

I sang my ditty high, I sang it low, 

I sang it every known (and unknown) way — 

Crescendo, forte, pianissimo — 
I-tiddly-iddly-i-ti-iddly-ay. 

U Envoi 

Prince, if by some amazing fluke you go 

To heaven, you'll hear the shawms and citherns 
play, 

And all the trumpets of the angels blow 
I-tiddly-iddly-i-ti-iddly-ay. 



[145] 



TAIL-PIECE 

A BOY goes by the window while I write, 
Whistling — the little demon! — in delight. 
I shake my fist and scowl at him, and curse 
Over the carcase of my murdered verse. 
And yet — which is it that the world most needs, 
His happy laughter or my threadbare screeds? 
There is more poetry in being young 
Than in the finest song that Shakespeare sung — 
And if that's true of godlike Shakespeare — well, 
Whistle the Marseillaise, and ring the bell, 
And chase the cat, and lose your tennis-ball, 
And tear your trousers on the garden wall, 
Scalp a Red Indian, sail the Spanish seas — 
Do any mortal thing you damn well please. 



[146] 



AVE 

WHEN all the world was black 
Your courage did not fail; 
No laughter did you lack 
Or fellowship or ale. 

And you have made defeat 

A nobler pageantry, 
Your bitterness more sweet 

Than is their victory. 

For by your stricken lips 

A gallant song is sung; 
Joy suffers no eclipse, 

Is lyrical and young, 

Is rooted in the sod, 

Is ambient in the air, 
Since Hope lifts up to God 

The escalade of prayer. 

The tyrants and the kings 
In purple splendour ride, 

But all ironic things 

Go marching at your side 

[147] 



AVE 

To nerve your hands with power, 
To salt your souls with scorn, 

Till that awaited hour 

When Freedom shall be born. 



[148] 



A REPLY 

To one who said that to conceive of God as a person ivas to 
reduce Him to our oivn level. 

OH, we can pierce 
With the swift lightnings far and fierce; 
We can behold 
Him in the sunset's lucid gold. 

Yet not by these 

Do we read His dark mysteries, 

Or tear apart 

The thick veil upon Heaven's heart. . . . 

Kneel with the kings 

Before His dreadful Emptyings, 

And see Him laid 

In the slender arms of a Maid. 

The village street 

Knew God's familiar, weary feet — 

The carpenter's Son 

Who made the great hills one by one. 

No glory slips 

From His sublime apocalypse — 
[149] 



A REPLY 

His homespun dress, 

Hunger, thirst and the wilderness. 

To a slave's death 

He gave his broken body's breath; 

An outcast hung 

The swart and venomous thieves among. 

And still yields He 

Godhead to our humanity, 

Leaving for sign 

Himself in the meek bread and wine. 



[150] 



JOB 

CAN flesh and blood contrive defence 
'Gainst swords that pierce the spirit 
through, 
Or meet, not knowing why or whence, 
The blind bolt crashing from the blue? 

"Oh, men have held times out of mind 
Their stern and stoic courage bright — 

But if no cry comes on the wind, 

How shall I face the ambushed night? 

"How shall I turn to bay, and stand 

To grapple, if I cannot see 
My fierce assailant at my hand, 

The high look of mine enemy? 

"If He will answer me, with rod 

And plague and thunder let Him come — 
But how can man dispute with God 

Who writes no book, whose voice is dumb? 

"Who rings me round with prison bars 
Through which I peer with sleepless eyes, 

[151] 



JOB 

And see the enigmatic stars — 
These only — in the iron skies." 



"These only? These together sang 
At the glad birthday of the earth 

When all the courts of Heaven rang 
With shouting and angelic mirth ! 

"The night enfolds you with a cloak 
Of silence and of chill affright? 

But when man's wells of laughter broke, 
Who gave man singing in the night? 

"The Rod shall burst to flowers and fruit 
Richer than grew on Aaron's rod, 

And Mercy clothe you head to foot, 
Beloved and smitten of your God!" 



[152] 



THE SOIL OF SOLACE 

I MAY not stand with other men, or ride 
In those grey fields where fall the screaming 
shells, 
Or mix my blood with blood of those who died 

To find a heaven in their sevenfold hells. 
Honour and death a strident bugle blows, 

Setting an end to death and blasphemy — 
Oh, had I any choice in it, God knows 

Where in this epic day I too would be ! 
Yet may I keep some English heart alive 

With a poet's pleasure in all English things- 
Good-fellowship and kindliness still thrive 

In English soil; the dusk is full of wings; 
And by the river long reeds grow; and still 
A little house sits brooding on the hill! 



[153] 



TO THE DEAD 

NOW lays the king his crown and sceptre 
down, 
Her gown of taffeta the lovely bride, 
The knight his sword, his cap and bells the clown, 

The poet all his verse's pomp and pride — 
The eloquent, the beautiful, the brave 
Descend reluctant to the straight, cold grave. 

No more shall shine for them the glorious rose, 
Or sunsets stain with red and awful gold, 

Night shall no more for them her stars disclose, 
Or day the grandeur of the Downs unfold, 

Or those eyes dull in death watch solemnly 

The regal splendour of the Sussex sea. 

For them the ringing surges are in vain ; 

They wake not at the cry of waking bird; 
The sun, the holy hill, the fruitful rain, 

The winds have called them and they have not 
stirred; 
The woods are widowed of your eager tread, 
O dear and desolate and dungeoned dead ! 
[154] 



TO THE DEAD 

Yet you shall rest awhile in English earth, 
And ripen many a pleasant English field 

Through the green Summer to the Autumn's 
mirth 
And flower unconsciously upon the weald — 

Until that last angelic word be said, 

And the shut graves deliver up their dead! 



[155] 



SPRING, 1916 

THE grey and wrinkled earth again is young 
And lays aside her tattered winter weeds 
For April-coloured gauze, and gives her tongue 

To jocund songs instead of pedants' screeds. 
Scatter the thin, white ashes of the hearth, 

And throw the brilliant diamond casement 
wide — 
Oh, wonder of the lonely garden garth! 

Oh, golden glory of the steep hillside 
Where flames the living loveliness of God! . . . 

But far, far off, beyond the bloom and bud 
A fiercer blossom burgeons from the sod 

Bright with the hues of honour and of blood; 
And men have plucked the sanguine flower of pain 
Where violets might be growing in the rain! 



[156] 



THE RETURN 

BEYOND these hills where sinks the sun in 
amber, 
Imperial in purple, gold and blood, 
I keep the garden walks where roses clamber, 
Set in still rows with shrub and flower and bud. 

After the clash of all the swords that sunder, 
After the headstrong pride of youth that fails, 

After the shattered heavens and the thunder 
Remain the summer woods and nightingales! 

So when the fever has died down that urges 
My lips to utterance of whirling words, 

Which, blown among the winds and stormy surges, 
Skim the wild sea-waves like the wild sea-birds. 

So when has ceased the tumult and the riot, 
A man may rest his soul a little space, 

And seek your solitary eyes in quiet, 

And all the gracious calmness of your face. 



[157] 



FULFILMENT 

(An Inscription for a Book of Poems) 

YOU who will hold these gathered songs, 
Made, darling, long before we met. 
Must keep the prophecy which belongs 
To those dear eyes, so strangely set 
With peace and laughter, where fulfils 
The rapture of my alien hills. 

Unknown, unknown you softly trod 

Among my fruitful silences, 
The last and splendid gift of God. 

The quest of all my Odysseys, 
The meaning of those quiet lands 
Where I found comfort at your hands. 

And when the yellowing woods awake, 
And small birds' twittered loves are told, 

When streams run silver, and there break 
The crocuses to tender gold, 

When quick light winds shall stir my hair, 

Some part of you will wander there. 



[158] 



PROPHECY 

MY eyes look out across the dim grey wold, 
The grey sky and the grey druidic trees, 
Knowing they keep inviolate the gold 

Memories of summer and the prophecies 
That lie imprisoned in the buried seeds 

Of all the lyric gaiety of Spring. . . . 
The sun shall ride again his flaming steeds; 

The dragon-fly dance past on diamond wing; 
The earth distil to music; and the rose 

Flaunt her impassioned loveliness and be 
A symbol of the singing hour that blows 

The tall ship and my gladness home to me — 
When I shall cry: Awake, my heart, awake, 
And deck yourself in beauty for her sake ! 



[159] 



THE SINGER TO HIS LADY 

IF any song I sing for you should be 
But made to please a poet's vanity, 
A richly jewelled and an empty cup 
In which no hallowed wine is offered up, 
A thing of chosen rhyme and cunning phrase, 
Fashioned that it may bring its maker praise; 
If love in me grow only soft and sweet, 
Remembering not with what worn and weary feet 
It journeyed to your fields of golden grain, 
The quiet orchards folded in the rain, 
The twilight gardens and the morning birds; 
If love remembers not and brings you words, 
Words as your thanks ; if in an idle hour 
It breaks its sword and plays the troubadour — 
Then may high God, the Universal Lord, 
Break me, as I false knight have broken my sword, 
If I who have touched your hands should bring 

eclipse 
To love's nobility with lying lips, 
Having seen more terrible than gleaming spears 
Your gentleness, your sorrow and your tears ! 



[i 60] 



CERTAINTIES 

ACROSS the fields of unforgotten days 
I see the gorgeous pearl-white morning 
burst 
Through her fine gauze of dreamy summer haze 

Beyond the rolling flats of Staplehurst, 
To bless the hours with songs of nesting birds, 

And the wild hedge rose and the apple tree, 
And laughter and the ring of friendly words, 

And the noon's pageant moving languidly. 
I walk again with boys now grown to men, 

And see far off with reminiscent eyes, 
How in the tangled woods of Horsmonden 

The mighty sun, a blood-red dragon, dies. . . . 
Some things there are as rooted as the grass 
In a man's mind — and these shall never pass. 



[161] 



FEAR 

TREAD softly; we are on enchanted ground: 
One touch and every hidden thing lies bare, 
The deep sea sundered, suddenly unbound 
The awful thunders instinct in the air! 

Oh, these we know; but what if we should break 

A secret spell as easily as glass, 
And stumble on their sleeping wrath and wake 

The armies and the million blades of grass? 

And find more dread than whirlwinds round our 
head, 
The sweep of sparrows' fierce, avenging wings, 
The anger of wild roses burning red, 

The terrible hate of earth's most helpless 
things ? 



[162] 



CHARITY 

WHO think of charity as milky-eyed 
Know not of God's great handmaid's 
terrible name, 
Who comes in garments by the rainbow dyed, 
And crowned and winged and charioted with 
flame. 

For Truth and Justice ride abroad with her, 
And Honour's trumpets peal before her face : 

The high archangels stand and minister 
When she doth sit within her holy place. 

None knoweth in the depth nor in the height 
What meaneth Charity, God's secret word, 

But kiss her feet, and veil their burning sight 
Before her naked heart, her naked sword. 



[163] 



SIGHT AND INSIGHT 

THIS hour God's darkest mysteries 
Are plainer than the screeds of men, 
Tangled and false philosophies 

Fashioned by lying tongue and pen. 

Plain as those bastions of cloud, 
Kind as the wide and kindly skies, 

And in the wild winds shouting loud 

The truths concealed from pedants' eyes. 

Pages which he may read who runs, 
Where no unlettered man may fail, 

Candid as are his noonday suns 
Familiar as his cheese and ale. 

Him, Whom our eyes may see, our ears 
Hear, Whom our groping hands may touch- 

Him we shall find ere many years, 
And finding fear not overmuch. 

Who gave me simple things to keep, — 
Laughter and love and memories, 

A farm, and meadows full of sheep, 
And quiet gardens full of bees, 
[164] 



SIGHT AND INSIGHT 

And those five gateways of the soul, 

Through which all good may come to me, 

Saints glorious of aureole, 

The flying thunders of the sea, 

And feasts, and gracious hands of friends, 
And flowers good to stroke and smell; 

Oh, in the secret woods He sends 

The birds their trembling joys to tell I 

He, too, is every day afresh 

Hid and revealed in bread and wine, — 
The awful Word of God made flesh, 

Mortal commingling with divine 1 

Shadows and evil dreams o'erthrown 
With Dagon and the gods of scorn, 

Since Peace was in the silence blown 

On that dear night when God was born. 



U65] 



CHRISTMAS CAROL 

LAY quietly Thy kingly head 
O mighty weakness from on high ; 
God rest Thee in Thy manger-bed — 
Sing Liillo-lullo-lullaby — 
O Splendour hid from every eye ! — 
La-liillo-lidlo-lullaby ! 

u Ye mild and humble cattle, yield 
Room for my little son to lie; 

Your God and mine is here revealed — 
Sing Liillo-lullo-lullaby — 
Naked beneath a naked sky — 
La-lullo-lullo-lullaby ! 

"Deal kindly with Him, moon and sun; 

No bird to Him a song deny; 
Ye winds and showers every one 

Sing Lullo-lullo-lullaby — 

For men shall cast Him out to die . . 

La-lullo-lullo-lullaby !" 



[166] 



A GARDEN ENCLOSED 

THERE is a plot where all the winds are still, 
A hidden garden where no voice is heard, 
Only a splashing fountain and the shrill 
Sweet clamour of a bird. 

The poplars guard like tall, grave sentinels 
Its peace inviolate; and in the tower 

With careful ritual ring out the bells 
The end of each dead hour. 

Laburnums, hollyhocks and roses run 

By secret paths — but who shall burst the bars? 
Oh, who shall see — except the curious sun 

And all the peering stars? . . . 

And Thou and Thou, my Love, for whom I keep 
My heart a watered garden, all Thine own, 

Where flowers my guardian angel tends in sleep, 
Bright summer blooms, are grown! 

Come, my Beloved, come — behold, the skies 
Are fragrant with the evening scents and dew: 

My soul hath sickened for Thy lips and eyes, 
And laden is with rue ! 

[167] 



A GARDEN ENCLOSED 

Oh, Thou shalt fly with soft wings like a dove's 
And hold me fast beyond all fate and fear, 

And we 'mid flowers shall tell our flowering loves 
Where no one else can hear I 



[168] 



A 



THE LOVER 

N hour ago I saw Thee ride in gold 

Along the burning highways of the skies; 
And now — Thou comest with soft and suppliant 



eyes, 
And fearing lest Thy love seem overbold. 

In this dear garden set with flower and tree, 
My soul, a maiden whom a great king woos, 
Stands thrilled and silent — Lord, what can she 
choose, 

Dumbfounded by Thy strange humility? 

Since Thou wilt have it so, my Lord, I bare 
In love and shamefastness my soul — Thy 

soul — 
So lay Thy tender hand, an aureole, 

Upon my beating heart, my chrismed hair. 



[169] 



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Treatment Date: July 2009 

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